Out Of Reach
by TheNextFolchart
Summary: A pile of dishes hit the floor with a clatter; Lily's wrist had twitched. "Potter?" she said, and her eyes were wide. "What Potter?" / Gatsby AU. For Safari. Complete. [Word Count: 22,141]
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

That was before the incident, of course, back when I'd actually _had _some advantages; and neither of us realized it until later, but the words doubled as a warning. My father forgot his own advice when he was called into the Ministry and, in a fit of rage, announced to the Wizengamot that the man called Fenrir Greyback was a soulless, evil werewolf who deserved nothing but death. The criticisms were ignored by the Ministry, and they let their prisoner go.

(Greyback heard every word.)

That was the night of the full moon; the night Greyback forced open my window from the outside and sank his teeth into my skin. He meant to kill me, I imagine, but my father arrived in time to fend him off and save my life. Then it was months of treatments in St. Mungo's, with painful injections and stinging salves and potions that burned my throat and scalded my stomach. It was agonizing transformations, and sleepless nights that I somehow couldn't remember the next morning, and it was the screams of a five-year-old boy begging his parents to let him die.

In the end, they couldn't cure the lycanthropy.

My father built me a tiny shed with chains that wrapped all the way around, and once per month it became my prison. I despised that shed, from the claw marks on the walls to the tiny hole in the ceiling that let in the moonlight, and I told my father a hundred times that I hated him for making me go inside.

(I didn't realize back then that he hated it as much as I did - maybe more - and I didn't know until long after he'd died that on the night of every full moon he sat outside my shed and listened to me howl while he cried into his arms.)

Maybe that was what drew me to Potter, in the end: he was stuck in a cage, same as I was, only his wasn't made of wood and nails. His chains were made of time; every day added a new link, and the longer he spent looking back the more out-of-reach it became.

* * *

I didn't move out of my father's house until he passed away. It didn't take long to pack my things - I didn't have much, other than a locket that was my mother's and the key to the Gringotts vault Dad left me in his will. I was tempted to send a blasting charm at my old shed, but destroying the past does not erase it, so in the end I left it standing.

I stood by the end of the walk and took a long last look at the house. It wasn't extravagant - two bedrooms, one bath, a tiny kitchen, and a parlor for the company that stopped calling after the incident - but it was the only home I had ever known.

"All right, Remus?" the new owner asked. I nodded, and he clapped me on the back. "Hard to say goodbye, I know."

He offered me his hand, and I shook.

"Safe travels," the new owner said with a smile, and I turned on the spot and Disapparated.

I reappeared just outside my new neighborhood. Godric's Hollow was a mixed community - some wizards, some muggles, all living in between each other - and in a town like that it wouldn't do to appear from out of nowhere in the middle of the street. As I walked through the village on my way to the new house, I wondered for the first time what I was going to do when the full moon hit. Build another shed? Lock myself in a closet?

(_Kill yourself?_)

But that thought was unbidden, unwanted, and I pushed it from my mind and turned the key in the front door of Number 221. It was airy, and white, and the perfect size for a family of one.

I left my suitcase in the foyer and moved to the master bedroom. It looked out over a lake - my house had a dock, but there was no money in my father's Gringotts vault for a boat, so my view was unobstructed by any kind of watercraft. Not like the house next door, which had a bright yellow speedboat tethered to the shore, or the one across the way, with a green sailboat christened _The Daisy _bobbing gently in the calm waves.

The faint _tap-tap-tap _of an owl at the window drew me away from the master bedroom and back out into my front hall. "Hello," I said, letting it in and offering it my arm as a perch. The owl deposited a letter on the windowsill and hooted gently when I ran my hand over its head-feathers. "Thank you," I told it, and the owl leaped from my arm and took off through the window.

_Dear Remus, _the letter read.

_First of all - how dare you. I know we haven't seen each other since our school days, but I thought we were close enough that you'd at least write me to say you'd be moving into our neighborhood! Sirius told me the news last night, and I've been terribly angry with you ever since._

_I do hope you'll come by once you've unpacked your things. We have so much to talk about! Sirius and I would be happy to show you around the neighborhood, introduce you to some people, feed you all the gossip. And I've missed you, Remus. We both have._

_The address is Number 12, Grimmauld Place._

_Hoping to see you soon,_

_Lily Evans Black._

I folded the letter and stowed it in my pocket. They didn't live far - Grimmauld Place was just across the lake. I could have Apparated, but I chose to walk. Fresh air was good for you, my father had always said, and it would be nice to get a better feel for the neighborhood in the process.

The house next door to mine, the one with the yellow speedboat, was far grander than my own humble home. Three stories high, with a tower on one side covered under a thin layer of ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and a large garden with a hedge that separated our yards. The name on the mailbox proclaimed the house belonged to a Potter.

I couldn't help but wonder what Mr. Potter was hiding behind his hedge, and whether he'd be willing to let his neighbor hide in his garden one night per month.

* * *

"Remus!"

Lily Evans - Lily _Black _now, but she'd been Evans when I'd known her and she remained Evans in my mind - nearly flew down the steps to catch me in a hug. "I knew you'd come," she said with a grin, and then she slapped my shoulder. "Really, Remus, you move in practically next door and you don't even bother to tell me?"

"I wasn't sure you'd want me around."

Number 12, Grimmauld Place was directly across the lake from my house, it turned out. Theirs was the dock that held the green sailboat. It was an extravagant house: two stories high with marble floors and a porch and a spectacular view of the rest of Godric's Hollow. My entire house would have fit in the kitchen.

She rolled her eyes. "Of course I want you around." She began to tug me inside. "Sirius is so eager to see you. And I've got a friend inside, I've told her so much about you and she's just dying to meet you!"

"How much have you told her?"

Lily looked up into my eyes. "She doesn't know about your Furry Little Problem," she promised. Her hand moved up to caress the pearls around her neck - a nervous habit she'd had for as long as I'd known her. "She does know you have scars on your face, but I told her you were attacked by a dog once. I kept your secret."

I gave her a smile. "Thank you."

Lily went into the house ahead of me. "Dora!" she called. "Dora, he's here!"

"About time," and Dora appeared in the doorway.

She was younger than Lily, with a wicked glint in her eyes and a strong chin that she kept held high. Her lips fluttered when she saw me, as if I weren't quite what she'd expected - as if I were _less _than what she'd expected - and I felt the blood rise to my cheeks.

"This is Dora Tonks," Lily murmured in my ear. "Dora, this is my very dear friend, Remus Lupin."

"Mr. Lupin," Dora said with a slow smile. "Charmed, I'm - "

But she was knocked out of the way by one Sirius Black. "Moony!" he cried as he bounded out of the house. "Moony, you git, why didn't you bloody _write_?"

"I wasn't sure you'd want me around," I said with a glance up at Dora.

"We want you around," Lily insisted, and she ushered us into the house. "There's dinner on the table," she said, guiding me into the dining room. "I'll just be one second, I've got to check on the baby."

"The baby?" I repeated.

"Yes, the baby - he's nine months old. Haven't you ever seen him?"

"Never."

"Well, you ought to see him."

Dora let out a groan and stretched her arms far over her head. "I'm stiff," she complained, and she was talking to Lily but her eyes were trained on me. "I've been lying on that sofa for _years_."

"Don't look at me," Lily retorted as she bustled in from the kitchen with a pile of plates and silverware in her hands. With a flick of her wand, the table began to set itself. "I've been trying to get you to come into London with me all afternoon."

"And I told you, I'm not interested in prancing around Diagon Alley all day." Dora was still looking at me. "You live on the other side of the lake," she said, taking a seat at the dining room table. "I know somebody there."

"Really?" I sat down across from her. "I don't know anybody."

"You must know Potter."

A pile of dishes hit the floor with a clatter; Lily's wrist had twitched. "Potter?" she said, and her eyes were wide. "What Potter?"

"Lily," Sirius said from his place at the head of the table. "Are we going to eat, or not?"

"We are," Lily said, turning slightly red as she turned back toward the kitchen.

Sirius sighed as he looked at the broken plates on the floor. "Clumsy as hell," he muttered, flicking his wand to repair the broken chinaware. "I want to take you into London some time," he said to me. "Show you all the places in Diagon Alley we never went as schoolboys."

"That's an awful lot of excitement for me," I began as Lily swept back into the room and began to scoop stew onto our plates.

"Damn it, Lily, are you a witch or aren't you?" Sirius interrupted.

She clenched her jaw. "Do it yourself, if you want it done with magic," she fired back, but she drew her wand and sent the correct portions flying toward us.

Sirius looked like he was about to raise his voice - which was just like him, even in the old days; the man had a temper, and so did Lily Evans, and it was a wonder this house was still standing with the two of them living in it - when an owl swooped in through the open window and landed at the head of the table. Sirius unwound the letter from its feet and frowned as he looked at the handwriting on the envelope.

"For me?" Lily asked, but there was a dullness in her tone that suggested she already knew the answer.

"For me," Sirius said, throwing his napkin on the table and standing. "Excuse me," he added for Dora's and my benefits, and then he moved into the next room.

Lily stabbed into her stew with a fork. "It's lovely to have you at my table, Remus," she said with a smile, but her face was glowing red. "You've been missed. You've been dearly missed."

"Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome." She kept glancing at the door that concealed Sirius. "I - will you excuse me, please, for just a moment?"

Dora sent me a sly glance that I didn't understand. "Erm. So. This Mr. Potter you spoke of, he's my neighbor - " I started.

"Don't talk. I want to hear what happens."

"Is something going to happen?" I asked.

"You mean you don't _know_?" Dora's eyes were large with honest surprise. "I thought everyone knew."

"I don't."

"Sirius has a girl. In London."

"Has a - a girl?"

Dora nodded. "You'd think she'd have the decency not to owl during dinner."

"He's married to Lily," I said stupidly, and Dora laughed.

"Of course he's married to Lily! But he's Sirius Black. He gets _bored_. Don't you know him at all?"

And there was nothing I could say to that, so I went back to my stew and tried as hard as I could not to listen to the conversation happening behind that door.

* * *

I walked home in the dark with only the light of the moon - a half-moon, not a full one, not yet - to guide me back to Number 221. It was unsettling. The dark had always been unsettling to me; every shadow was a monster, every movement was Greyback. As I fumbled with my house key, the silhouette of a cat caught my eye, and as I turned to watch it I saw that I was not alone.

Thirty feet away the figure of a man had stepped out from the shadow of my neighbor's house. He was standing on the lawn, just outside his hedge, with his back to the street, and he was gazing out over the lake. It could only have been Mr. Potter himself, and his name rose to my lips, but I didn't dare call to him. He took no notice of me, but simply looked out over the water, head pointed in the general direction of the dock directly across from us.

I followed his gaze to the green sailboat docked at the Black house, bobbing calmly in the water. I watched it rock for a moment, and then turned back to examine Mr. Potter.

But he was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

"Diagon Alley," Sirius said, inhaling deeply. It was nearly two weeks after the ill-fated dinner party, and he'd finally convinced me to join him on a trip into London. "Merlin, I haven't been back in years."

I inhaled, too, but the scent of the street was bitter and filled with smoke, and it was all I could do to hold back a cough. Sirius slapped me on the back. "Moony, do you remember all the good times we had here?"

"I don't think I've ever been to Diagon Alley with you, Padfoot," I said, slipping back into his old nickname. "I always went with my parents."

"Oh, I know. But I'm sure you had some good times here alone. I know I did."

"I suppose."

"Did you ever knock over sixteen shelves of wands in Ollivander's?" Sirius asked dreamily. "I did. Twice, actually. Two years in a row."

"I never did that, no."

"Did you ever go into the Magical Menagerie and release all the animals from their cages?"

"Never."

"Oh." Sirius looked at me with his nose wrinkled. "Didn't you have any fun?"

I laughed. "I'm afraid my trips to London were far more boring than yours were."

He shrugged. "Come with me," he said, setting off down the cobblestone streets. "I want you to meet my girl."

The thought of that - of Sirius Black with a wife and a girlfriend on the side - still made my stomach churn. "Right. Your girl. She works in Diagon Alley?"

"Landlady at the Leaky Cauldron," Sirius said, pointing up the street at the pub. "You'll love her. She's quite the handful."

"I'm sure."

I followed Sirius into the pub. "Pettigrew," he said, taking a seat at the bar.

A small man with watery eyes looked up. "Black," he said with a nervous grin. "What can I get for you?"

"The usual," Sirius said, pulling out a silver sickle and bouncing it against the counter. "And a beer for my friend Mr. Lupin here."

"Coming right up," the man called Pettigrew said, and he began to bustle around, dropping mugs and spilling alcohol all over himself.

"Git," Sirius said under his breath.

Then I heard footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later a woman appeared in the doorway behind the bar. She was all angles; sharp cheekbones, thin wrists, straight black hair, piercing blue eyes. "Mr. Black," she said with a slow smile, and she walked through Pettigrew as if he were a ghost. "So nice to see you again."

Sirius kissed her hand. "And you, Marlene," he said.

"Get them their drinks, will you, Peter?" Marlene snapped at the trembling man, who let out a squeak and set their glasses on the counter. "People don't pay to watch you stumble around like an imbecile." She sighed as she looked down at his beer-soaked apron. "Go clean yourself up," she ordered, and Pettigrew skirted around her and ran up the stairs to change.

"I want to see you," Sirius said, taking Marlene's hands. He hadn't introduced me yet.

She laughed. "Go ahead and look."

"Don't play games. I want to see you _tonight_."

Her gaze softened. "All right."

"Meet me in the usual place. As soon as you close up."

Marlene's eyes _glowed. _"I'll come if I want to," she said, but it was sensual and sassy and I could see why she had Sirius' attention.

"You'll come," Sirius said. I saw his hands tighten around hers. She didn't wince.

"We'll see." And she pulled away and disappeared upstairs.

"What do you think of her?" Sirius asked as we left the Leaky Cauldron for the streets of muggle London.

"She's a beauty."

"She's more than a beauty," Sirius said with a wink.

"Doesn't her husband notice?"

"Pettigrew?" Sirius smirked. "He thinks she goes out to visit her sister after hours. He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive. Poor bastard."

"Ah." We walked a few paces in silence. "And Lily?"

Sirius stopped. "What about Lily?"

"Does Lily suspect?"

Sirius didn't answer, and I didn't press the matter.

* * *

I went home after that - Sirius offered to let me come to "the usual place" with him and Marlene, but I politely declined - and sat at my dining room table, gazing out the window at the hedge that surrounded Mr. Potter's garden. I could hear music coming from his house even with my windows shut. There were cars parked outside his house and all along the entirety of the street; two extra boats were tethered to his dock; and people poured out of every inch of the mansion, from the front door to the balconies.

Before me on the table was a letter. I hadn't been home to receive it, but the owl had been kind enough to wait for me to return from my London excursion with Sirius.

_My dear Mister Lupin,_

_I would be deeply honored if you would attend my little party tonight. I must admit I am eager to make the acquaintance of my newest neighbor. I have seen you several times and had intended on calling on you long before now, but a peculiar combination of circumstances has prevented it._

_Very truly yours,_

_James Potter._

If it had been any other night, my curiosity about Mr. Potter would have compelled me to attend.

But tonight was the full moon.

My first full moon in Godric's Hollow.

And I still didn't have a plan.

Oh, there were vague ideas - lock myself away in the attic, tie myself up and lie beneath the bed, contact my neighbors to see if any of them happened to have a wooden shed lying around - but none of it was foolproof, and none of it sounded pleasant, and the last thing I wanted to do was add Potter's party into the mix.

I owled Lily, in the end, asking whether there was a spare room where she could lock me up until morning. The reply came back almost immediately: yes, there was a room; no, she didn't mind if I used it; and was it alright if she told Dora Tonks the truth about me, because she was spending the night and Lily didn't want to come up with a fabrication about my reasons for staying with her.

It was with great reluctance that I wrote back, _You may tell her. I'll be over in an hour._

* * *

"So you're a werewolf," Dora said without preamble when I appeared on the Black's doorstep.

Lily swatted her friend's arm. "Be _polite_."

"I'm a werewolf," I said.

"I'm a metamorphagus," she said with a shrug. "We're all freaks, in our own way."

To prove her point, she let her nose grow into an ugly snout with tufts of hair springing from the pores.

"_Dora_," Lily hissed.

"It's all right," I said, stepping inside and dropping my house keys on the side table in the foyer. "Where do you want me?" I asked Lily, and she described a room at the top of the stairs.

"We'll soundproof it with magic, so Sirius won't hear - if he even comes home," Lily added bitterly. Her fingers crawled up to the pearls around her throat and began to drum. "Is there anything you need?" she asked me. "A pillow, or a blanket?"

I shook my head. "I won't be sleeping, I'm afraid."

"You probably wouldn't be sleeping even if it weren't a full moon," Dora said offhandedly as Lily went upstairs to check on the baby. "What with the party going on next door to you." She pointed across the lake at Potter's house, which looked lively and drunken even from here.

"They go on every night," I said. "I'm used to it by now. That Potter, he throws a lot of parties."

"Have you ever gone to one?"

"No. I've never been invited, before tonight."

Dora raised her eyebrows. "You were invited to the party tonight?"

I nodded.

"Nobody gets invited."

"Oh."

Dora wrapped her hand around my wrist. "If you were invited, we've got to go," she said with that wicked grin of hers.

"I can't. The full moon - "

"It's still daylight," Dora insisted. "We'll Apparate back here before the moon rises. Come on." And before I could protest, she turned on the spot and Apparated us both into Potter's garden.

* * *

Potter's house was loud, raucous, and filled to the brim with people I had never seen before. Dora disappeared the moment we landed, swept away by the crowd, and I was left to make awkward conversation with a bespectacled man in the gardens.

"I don't really go out like this," I admitted to him in a voice barely loud enough to be heard over the music. "Haven't been to a party since Hogwarts, I'd say."

"You went to Hogwarts?" the man asked. "I was at Hogwarts. Years ago. Gryffindor House."

"I'm Gryffindor, as well," I said, leaving out the fact that I nearly hadn't gone to Hogwarts at all.

"So you must hold a grudge against Slytherins, then," the man said with a wink. "Every Gryffindor I've ever met does."

"I do," I said with a laugh, and I was about to ask him his name when Dora showed up again at my side.

"Sun is just about to set," she said, pointing at the horizon. "We have at _least_ half an hour before the moon rises. I told you there was nothing to worry about."

I exhaled. "Cutting it close," I said under my breath, and she shrugged and asked whether I was enjoying myself. "It's unusual," I said, addressing both Dora and the Gryffindor. "I've never met the host, you see. I live over there, on the other side of the hedge, and this man, this Mr. Potter, he sent me an invitation by owl."

The Gryffindor looked confused for a moment before his mouth curved up into a smirk. "I'm Mr. Potter," he said.

"What!" I exclaimed. "Oh, I - I beg your pardon!"

Dora was grinning.

"I thought you knew," the Gryffindor said, pushing his hand through the mop of black hair on his head. "I'm afraid I'm not a very good host."

I began to reassure him that he was nothing of the sort, but Dora had her hand on my elbow, she was shouting in my ear about the moon, and then we were spinning and Apparating and falling onto Lily's couch.

"What was that?" I gasped when the room stopped spinning.

Dora shrugged. "Didn't want to cut it too close," she said.

"Who is he?"

"Who, Potter? Nobody knows."

"Do you?"

Dora laughed and shook her head. "He's just a man named Potter. I should be asking _you. _You're the one who got an invitation."

I shook my head slowly as Lily came in and nervously asked whether I'd like to go upstairs now. "I don't know anything about him," I said over my shoulder as Lily escorted me to the attic. But as the moon rose and the familiar prickle of the transformation began across my skin, I realized that wasn't true:

I knew he'd gone to Hogwarts.

And I knew he was a Gryffindor.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

The morning after a transformation was always agonizing.

"D'you want breakfast?" Lily called through the door - and it was nearly ten, she had to know I wasn't a wolf anymore, but she still sounded scared.

"I'm fine," I said, even though the room was spinning.

"Are you certain?"

"Yes. Thank you. I'll be down in a while."

She took the hint and went back downstairs.

I closed my eyes and tried to distract myself from the churning in my stomach. Changing at the full moon was not like changing into an animagus; it never got easier, never became familiar. There was something fundamentally different about shifting into an animal form based on free will as opposed to being forced to stretch and grow and change into a new body.

To get my mind off it, I thought of Potter. Potter the Gryffindor, who held a grudge against Slytherins and owned a yellow speedboat. Potter, who lived in a mansion next to my eyesore of a cottage, and who hosted parties but didn't invite anyone.

Potter, who had invited _me_.

And why me? What did I have that the others didn't? What made me stand out?

(_You're a monster, for one._)

But he couldn't have known that, not after only two weeks.

A knock on the door. "I told you, I'll be down in awhile," I said without opening my eyes.

"I was hoping to come in, actually," said Dora, and with a groan I hoisted myself from the floor and moved to unlock the door. "You look terrible," she said, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. "Do you always look like this after the full moon?"

"Yes." I sank back to the floor as gracefully as I could.

"If you were a metamorphagus, you wouldn't have that problem." She settled herself into the corner of the tiny room and began to shift her eye color rapidly between brown and blue.

"I suppose I wouldn't."

Dora settled on brown and began to change the length of her hair: chin-length, shoulder-length, waist-length, and back up to chin-length. "I went back to Potter's last night," she said.

"You did?"

"He asked me about you."

"Who?"

She looked at me as if I were slow. "Potter."

"Oh. What did he want to know?"

Dora left her hair at her chin and turned it jet-black. "What kind of man you were."

I waited, but she didn't elaborate. "What did you tell him?" I asked. The room had stopped spinning by then, and I was almost feeling up to Lily's breakfast after all.

"I told him you were kind. Thoughtful. Polite. A little reserved, but there's a wild side I haven't seen yet, I'm sure of it." Dora's cheekbones rose slightly up her face. "I told him you were having tea with me this afternoon." She looked at me with her new brown eyes. "At half past four." Her nose shifted from a long, straight slope to one with a dainty upturn at the end. "And I told him you were fascinating."

I laughed. "Fascinating?"

She winked. "You _are _a werewolf, after all."

When we went downstairs together for Lily's breakfast (and said hello to a hung-over and extremely grouchy Sirius), Dora didn't take her eyes off of me the entire time.

* * *

Potter caught me on my way home from Lily's. "Lupin," he called, jumping down from his porch. "I was hoping I'd see you! Do come here."

I went.

"You rushed out of here so quickly last night, I didn't get to say goodbye," he said.

I answered that I hadn't been able to help it, but if he were to have another party I would love to attend it for its entirety.

"Come out for lunch me now," Potter offered. "I know a spot just off the lake. We can take my boat."

He led me through his garden to the dock behind his house where his bright yellow speedboat was tied up. "I call her _The Dream_," he said proudly, patting the side of the boat. He revved up the engine and steered her out away from the dock. "I don't know much about you, Mr. Lupin," he called over the motor.

"I could say the same to you," I replied.

He blinked once. I got the feeling he wasn't the type of man people talked back to. Then his face broke into a grin - a genuine smile, not a smirk, and it was the sort of smile that felt as though it _understood _you, as though it sympathized with you entirely, and as though nothing in the world existed for it beyond you. "My name is James Potter," he said, and it rolled off his tongue as if he'd rehearsed it, as if he'd told this story a thousand times. "I am the son of wealthy people who are all dead now. I was educated at Hogwarts - all my ancestors were educated at Hogwarts. When my family died, they left me a good deal of money. I intended to live like a young prince. I wanted to travel all over Europe with a beautiful woman on my arm and try to forget that very sad thing that happened to me long ago."

His eyes had a faraway glaze over them.

"Then came the war. You-Know-Who rose to power; I joined the forces against him. Did some spying on Dumbledore's behalf - I can't talk about it, of course, but I was rather important, if I do say so myself."

He steered the speedboat into a public harbor and flicked his wand. Four sets of rope uncoiled themselves from the bottom of the craft and busied themselves tying knots around the wooden posts of the dock. "But what about you?" He nodded to indicate that he wanted me to step out of _The Dream _first. "Tell me your story."

"It's not an easy one to tell."

He flashed that grin again. "Being modest? And here I babbled through the entire boat ride. Clearly I am the more self-centered of the two of us." He tugged at a knot to make sure it was secure. "I have a favor to ask of you."

"A favor?"

"A request. You'll hear more about it this afternoon."

"At lunch?" I asked when my feet were planted firmly on the dock.

"No. Later on. When you take Miss Tonks out for tea. She has kindly agreed to talk about this matter with you."

"Matter? What matter?"

He smirked. "You'll find out later on, won't you." He clambered from the boat and set off down the street. "I love this place," he said fondly, gazing around at all the shops and cafes. "It's like Hogsmeade, on a smaller scale. Charming. And we've got muggles mixed in - be careful you don't use your wand."

I didn't say anything. What _matter_? Why wouldn't he tell me outright? Why take all the trouble of going through Dora?

And then - a rush of betrayal. I'd though Dora had asked me to tea because she _liked _me.

Potter led me into a diner called The Valley. "Delicious sandwiches here," he said while the hostess prepared our menus. "And spectacular puddings. I don't know how partial you are to chocolate, but - "

"Extremely partial," I said.

He smirked. "Excellent. Ah, set a place for one more, will you?" he added to the hostess. "I'm expecting another guest."

The hostess set down another set of cutlery. "Who's joining us?" I asked, unfolding my menu.

"A business associate. Mr. Longbottom. I don't believe you know him."

I had never heard of a Longbottom, so I turned my eyes to the menu and scanned the long list of choices. Potter hadn't been lying about the puddings; an entire page was devoted to photographs of chocolate cakes, banana sundaes, pies, dainty sugar cookies topped with icing. . . . It made my mouth water just to see the pictures.

"Mr. Longbottom!" Potter said, startling me out of the menu. He stood to shake the hand of a tall, rather gangly man with thin glasses and very little hair. "My associate, Frank Longbottom," he said for my benefit. "This is Remus Lupin."

We made our introductions, and Longbottom slid into the booth next to Potter. "Terrible traffic," he said, pulling out his wand and polishing it with his napkin. "Landed in the middle of the street when I Apparated here, nearly got myself run over."

"I thought there were too many muggles here for magic," is what I almost said, but I held my tongue.

"So Mr. Lupin," Mr. Longbottom said after a quick glance at his menu. "James tells me you're interested in our little business venture."

"Not him, Frank," Potter said. "This isn't _that _man. Mr. Lupin is just a friend."

"Ah, my mistake." Mr. Longbottom had his wand on the table again.

The table sank into an uncomfortable silence. Just after the waitress came to take our orders, Potter excused himself and strode out of the restaurant, making a beeline for someone standing just outside the door. "Have you known Mr. Potter long?" Longbottom asked me.

I shook my head. "Only just met him last night."

"Fine fellow, isn't he? I've known him since our war days. We fought You-Know-Who together. He was straight out of Hogwarts when he started showing up at the auror training sessions. Never met a braver son of a bitch in my life."

"Gryffindors," I said, shaking my head with a smile. "Brave to a fault, every one of us."

"Oh, are you a Lion, too?"

I told him I was.

"Listen," he said, leaning across the table with his hands clasped together. "James and I have a little business project started. It's not strictly _legal_, by the Ministry's standards, but it'll make you rich."

He went on to explain a complicated scam involving betting on Quidditch teams, Time Turners, and a memory charm of his own design. I listened politely until Potter came back inside. "So sorry," he said as he slid into the booth. "I thought I saw someone I knew."

"Who?" Longbottom was brazen enough to ask.

"Someone from school." He shrugged. "I saw the red hair, and I thought maybe . . . but it was a Weasley."

Longbottom chortled. I smiled politely.

The waitress dropped off our food just then, and the rest of the meal was awkward small talk and frequent bursts of conspicuous magic on the part of Mr. Longbottom, which had the muggles in the next booth staring.

* * *

One October day, when I'd only just begun my fourth year at Hogwarts -

(said Dora Tonks later on that afternoon, sitting opposite me in the tea shop.)

- I was wandering the corridors when I happened to come across a group of Gryffindor girls. Sixth-years, all of them; much too old to bother with a tiny Hufflepuff like me. I intended to keep walking.

But one of them called out to me. Lily Evans - she was still an Evans back then - beckoned me over. "Dora," she said, and I was flattered that she knew my name, because of all the girls I admired Lily Evans the most. "Are you going to Slug Club?" I said I was. "Will you be a dear and tell Professor Slughorn I'm going to be late?" she asked.

There was a boy looking at her the whole time. He was just beside her, and he hung on her every word as if he were drunk on her voice. His name was James Potter, and he loved Lily more deeply than I had ever seen another human love.

They were inseparable all year. We were jealous of them. He showered her with gifts, with love, with secret little whispers that made her eyes glow and her face flush. It was the kind of love we all craved and Lily Evans had found it at age sixteen, and we couldn't even hate her because she was too likable.

He was a year ahead of her, though, and by the time September rolled around again Lily was on her own. Potter went off to be an auror. She tried to go with him, but the aurors wouldn't let her join up until she'd completed her education. It broke her heart, being so far away from him. He wrote when he could, but it wasn't enough.

I was Lily's greatest distraction. She took me under her wing, tutored me in magic and in life, used me to keep her mind off of him. James made it home for Christmases, but never more often than that. Lily saw him one day out of three hundred sixty-five, and then she came back to me, face bathed in tears.

Then a year and a half ago, just after their annual meeting, we got the word that Potter was dead. Lily locked herself up in her room for days. She wouldn't let anyone in to see her. It didn't matter. We could hear the sobbing through the walls.

She met Sirius a month later, and never gave Potter a thought again. He was fresh out of Durmstrang, just a few years younger than she was. Everyone who looked at them could see the passion. He was _crazy _about her. They threw themselves into that romance with everything they had. He married her the next month - he had money, he dressed her up in pearls and lace for the wedding, she looks like an angel in the photographs. And nobody questioned the speed, because it was so obvious to us how desperately and painfully in love they were.

I was the only one who knew about the baby.

She didn't tell anyone else, not even her husband, but the baby isn't a Black. He's a Potter. He's _James _Potter's.

And then Potter came back from the dead. There was a mistake, or a miracle, or something, but he didn't die, he made it through his part in the war and he's been living in Godric's Hollow, and I didn't put together that this Potter was _that _Potter until last night when he recognized me at his party.

* * *

"It's a strange coincidence," I said when she finished.

"It's not a coincidence. Not at all."

"Why not?"

"Potter bought that house because he knew Lily lived across the lake." Dora sipped delicately at her tea. "He wants to know if you'll invite Lily to your house some afternoon and then let him come over."

I didn't say anything for a few seconds. "Why me?" I asked finally. "Why couldn't you host the tea?"

"You live right next door. He wants Lily to see his house."

"Oh." Something was still tugging at me. "Why can't he just send her an owl himself?"

Dora shrugged. "He's nervous. It's been a year and a half. He'd rather catch her by surprise than write to her and be ignored, or rejected. Every article he can find in the papers is about how happy she is with her husband."

"She isn't happy with Sirius," I said. "They're not a good match. I know him."

"How _do_ you know Mr. Black?" Dora asked, leaning back gently in her chair. "Not from Hogwarts, obviously. He's a Durmstrang man."

"He went to Hogwarts for a while," I said. "I was a Prefect when he was a first-year - I suppose Potter would have been a third-year, but we never crossed paths. Anyway, Sirius was expelled when he was twelve for excessive rulebreaking. Couldn't seem to stop causing trouble. Durmstrang probably helped with the discipline. But he was always looking for the next adventure. He isn't the type to settle down."

"Well, he settled down for Lily."

"Not really. Not if he's got a girl."

Dora allowed a smirk. "So you'll do it. The tea, I mean. Just her - no Sirius, no baby, no me."

I sighed. "Does she even want to see him again?"

"She's not to know about that part. Potter doesn't want her to know. You're just supposed to invite her over." She nudged my ankle beneath the table. "You'll do it?"

"I'll do it." I took a swig from my own teacup. A quip ghosted across my brain about Potter's bravery not quite living up to his Gryffindor status, but the thought never quite made it to my lips, and I let the conversation drift to other topics.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Potter was waiting on the lawn for me when I came home.

"I talked with Miss Tonks," I told him when he asked how my tea had gone. "I'm going to owl Lily immediately and invite her over here to tea."

"You will." Potter exhaled. "Thank you."

"It's no trouble."

"Good." His eyes were a swirl of relief and excitement and fear. "Don't put yourself through any kind of trouble."

"What day is best for you?"

"What day is best for _you_?" he asked.

"How about the day after tomorrow?"

Potter licked his lips. "The day after tomorrow. That's fine."

"Unless you'd rather a different day?"

"No, no, the day after tomorrow. It's just . . . it's awfully _soon_."

"Next week, then, or the week after. Whichever you prefer."

Potter looked at the manicured lawn beneath his feet for a long time before he met my eyes again. "Day after tomorrow," he said firmly. "No point in putting it off."

"No," I agreed. "Best to get it over with quickly."

It was the wrong thing to say; his eyes widened, his mouth fell open slightly. "Get it over with?" he repeated. "No, Remus, very much on the contrary. I need enough time to get myself cleaned up. Make everything look perfect for her." He looked down at the lawn again, and then very deliberately pointed his gaze at the scraggly grass in my yard. "You don't have a lot of money," he said suddenly. "Do you?"

I didn't answer.

He cleared his throat. "Not that I'm judging. I just thought . . . you see, I run a little business on the side - well, I don't run it, precisely, but I make a fair amount from it. And I thought, if you didn't make very much. . . ."

I waited for him to ask me outright.

"It's this business deal I've got set up with Longbottom," he said. "We aren't doing anything wrong. Betting on the outcomes of Quidditch World Cup matches is legal, ask anyone. Ask the people who organize the betting."

"I don't gamble," I told him.

He let out a laugh and waved his hand in the air, as if my words were cigarette smoke he could just fan away. "It's not gambling. Not when you know who's going to win."

"It's cheating, then."

He kept trying. "It isn't technically cheating. Nowhere in the rules of betting does it prohibit the use of Time Turners."

"Time Turners aren't supposed to be available to the public," I said.

Potter winked. "Longbottom's got a business deal going with some people in the Ministry, as well. The things he gets his hands on. . . ." Potter chuckled. "Anyway, if you're sure you don't want to, I won't force you."

"I don't want to."

"Say no more." Potter raised his hands in surrender. "Probably for the best, anyway." And without any further explanation, he clapped me on the shoulder and reminded me to invite Lily before turning away and retreating into his house.

* * *

I sent an owl to Lily the next morning, and she replied right away that she would be ecstatic to join me for tea - that was how she always talked, with ecstatics and marvelouses and lovelys, and sometimes I got the feeling she was compensating - and she was excited to finally be able to see my home.

"Don't bring Sirius," I wrote back, and the answer that returned simply said, "Wouldn't dream of it."

When I told Potter, he turned pink and began to mutter about plans to be made. "Have you got a tea set?" he asked, and I told him I did. "A nice one?"

I affirmed.

"May I see it?" he pressed, and so I let him come across my browning lawn and step into my house. "So quaint," he said when he saw the parlor, running his hand over the mantelpiece. "Rather cozy, though, for a fireplace. How do you Floo anywhere?"

"I don't."

"No? Then why've you got - oh." He was pointing at the urn on my mantelpiece. It was one of the only things that had made the move with me from the old house. When I was young, my mother had kept it filled to the brim with Floo Powder; now it stayed empty. "How about the tea set, then?" he asked.

I stepped into the kitchen and opened the cupboard above the sink. The teapot I retrieved for Potter was worn. The china that had once been white was now a dingy grey, and the pink flower designs were scarred with thin cracks. I knew the moment I saw his face that it was far less fine than he'd hoped.

"It was my mother's," I said, offering it to him. He took it carefully and began to inspect. "If you'd rather bring over a set of your own..."

"No, not at all!" He put the teapot on the table and clapped his hands together. "It's perfect. Charming, sentimental - I think she'll value sentimental." He peered out the window at my yard. "Now it's just a matter of trimming the grass."

"I'll call the gardener," I said, but Potter wouldn't hear of it, he'd send his own gardener over later when he was done shaping Potter's hedges.

"And maybe you'll like Mr. Filch's work so much you'll decide to keep him on. He's a brilliant groundsman, although not so nice to look at." Potter shuddered. "I'll send him this afternoon."

Potter sent over a lot more than just Mr. Filch that afternoon. An entire team of gardeners, housekeepers, and butlers, armed with an arsenal of cleaning supplies, crawled over every inch of my property, polishing, painting, and of them lugged giant scrub brushes and heavy buckets of chlorine all over the backyard before realizing I had no pool. "Do you like it?" Potter asked as a servant filled my empty urn with Floo Powder.

"They're very thorough," I said.

"Mrs. Norris," Potter called, and a worn-out housekeeper with piercing eyes looked up from her dusting. "Mrs. Norris, this is Mr. Lupin, the man of the house."

"Pleasure," Mrs. Norris said curtly.

"Mrs. Norris runs a tight ship," Potter said. "She owns the cleaning service. Mr. Filch owns the gardening service. Both excellent at what they do."

The smile I sent Mrs. Norris went unreturned.

"And this is Mr. Dobby." Potter gestured to one of the butlers, who was setting the table with my less-than-fine tea set. Dobby was young for a butler, maybe in his mid-thirties, with a boyish face and large ears. He looked up at his name and bounded to Potter's side.

"What can we do for you, Master Potter?" he asked with a little bow.

"This is Mr. Lupin," Potter said. Dobby bowed again. "Mr. Dobby is my personal assistant - and a brilliant one, at that." Dobby turned pink. "Then there's Miss Winky, who does the cooking." He pointed out a woman with sad eyes who was preparing a tray of delicate-looking sandwiches. "And Mr. Kreach, who handles the automobile."

Kreach was considerably older than the rest of them. He was sitting in one of the dining room chairs, glowering out the window at my empty driveway. "No car?" he asked.

"No car," I said.

He grunted.

"Mr. Kreach isn't exactly a ray of sunshine," Potter said quietly. "Anyway, that's the team. Don't know what I'd do without them."

They made my house look considerably brighter, and then they filed out the door and disappeared back into Potter's mansion. Only Dobby stayed behind, and only for a moment to perform his absurd little bow and to ask whether I was pleased with their work.

"It's lovely, Dobby, really," Potter said, clapping his butler on the back, and I agreed.

"Very good, Masters Potter, Lupin." Dobby gave us cheery grins and scurried off to the house next door.

"They really cleaned this place up," Potter said. "Mrs. Norris polished the doorknobs and everything, bless her heart. And look at the lawn!"

The yard, while still not quite the luscious dark green of Potter's own lawn, looked considerably neater than it had that morning. Mr. Filch and his gardeners had ripped out the shrubs surrounding my cottage and planted daisies in shades of yellow and white. They had carried over a long bench - probably from Potter's own garden - and set it facing the lake, strategically covering a bare patch in the grass.

"Now, Mr. Filch uses a special fertilizer - it's infused with Growing Solution, so your lawn will come in overnight and fill up the dead areas. He swears by the stuff. But you've got to be careful, because it also causes rapid growth of everything else in your yard. Insects, snakes, rodents; they won't grow _too _large, but don't be alarmed if you see an ant that's six inches in height. Comes in handy for pulling pranks, but it can be a nasty shock early in the morning."

I assured him I'd be fine.

"The worst is spiders." Potter shuddered. "Back at Hogwarts they used to use the same fertilizer, only it used to be stronger. Caused a nest of spiders to grow ten feet tall. I'll never forget that."

He made me promise not to disturb any of the hard work his crew had done, and then he waltzed out the door, calling over his shoulder that he'd be over the next day at two. When he was gone, I moved to the mantelpiece and carefully pulled the urn into my arms. I held it for a moment, eyes closed, savoring the musty scent of the Floo Powder. Then I poured all of it out through the window and set the empty vase back above the fireplace.

* * *

It was pouring rain at one-thirty the next day when Lily's car pulled into my driveway. She wasn't driving - apparently it was customary in Godric's Hollow to have a personal driver like Mr. Kreach - and she leaped from the backseat without an umbrella and raced for my doorstep, red-lipped mouth open in a laugh.

"What lovely weather," she cried when I opened the door and invited her in to drip on the carpet. "What absolutely lovely weather!" She shook her head back and forth; long locks of red hair splayed out from her head and sprayed me with water. "Dry me off, will you, Remus?"

I drew my wand. "_Ventus_," I muttered, and a gust of hot air nearly bowled my guest over. "Dry?" I asked.

She patted her dress. "Damp. But that's fine." The rain had undone the painstaking straightening job she liked to do on her hair. It exploded around her face in wild curls, like the mane of a lion, and she looked fierce and radiant and untamable, and for a moment I understood why Potter had to see her again.

"Your _house, _Remus," Lily said, shrugging out of her coat. "Is this really where you live?"

"Yes."

She took in the smallness. "It's lovely," she said finally. "Really marvelous." She moved to the table and touched the spout of the teapot. "Wherever did you get these?" she asked.

"They were my mother's."

"They're beautiful."

"They're beginning to break."

Lily's smile began to fade into something more thoughtful. "Isn't that the way of things," she said quietly, and her hand creeped up to the string of pearls around her throat. "Oh! Remus, you've set an extra place. I thought you didn't want me to bring Sirius?"

I told her I had a surprise guest joining us, and she immediately guessed Dora. "Not Miss Tonks," I said.

"Someone from school, then? Someone from the old days?"

"You'll see."

She grinned. "Is it Professor Dumbledore? You were always close with him."

"Lily. Just sit."

She did, chattering all the time about how much she missed the old days. I went to the kitchen to retrieve the delicate sandwiches Miss Winky had prepared the evening before. Through the window, I saw Potter exit his house, Mr. Dobby at his side holding an umbrella over his master's head. His knock on the door coincided with a particularly loud roll of thunder, but I anticipated his arrival and was there to welcome him inside anyway.

"Horrible weather," he said as he stepped inside. Dobby winked at me, about-faced, and started back toward Potter's house.

"Who is it?" Lily called from the other room, and Potter froze.

"I can't do this," he whispered. "I don't - "

"You can do this," I said. "Take off your hat."

He did.

"Remus!" Lily sounded impatient. "Who _is _it?"

Potter was white. "What if she doesn't want me?" came out of his mouth, and the startled look on his face told us both that he hadn't actually considered that option until now.

"Remus?" There was the gentle scraping of Lily scooting her chair backwards. "Are you - _oh._"

I took Potter's hat out of his hands and mumbled an excuse about a hatstand around the corner.

Lily spoke first. "I certainly am awfully glad to see you again," I heard her say, and her voice had lost it's playfulness and adopted a lofty, sophisticated tone.

A horrible pause. With nothing to do in the hallway, I stepped back into the living room. Potter was reclining against the mantelpiece in a strained pretense of perfect ease, even boredom. Lily was on the sofa, her hand wrapped around her pearl necklace.

"We've met before," Potter said for my benefit - or for Lily's, really - and his hand came down on the empty Floo Powder urn. It teetered on the edge - fell - Potter moved to catch it, but it slipped through his fingers - shattered.

He swore under his breath. "Sorry about that," he said to me, pulling out his wand, but Lily had beaten him to it.

"_Reparo_," she whispered from the sofa, and the urn flew back together and righted itself on the mantelpiece. She didn't take her eyes off of him.

"Thanks," I said. Neither of them appeared to hear me.

"It's been a long time since we met," Lily said.

"A year and a half last Sunday." It fell out of Potter's mouth automatically, and if there was any hope in Lily's mind that he was here by coincidence, it was gone after that. "Lily - "

"Tea," Lily interrupted, blushing a furious red. "Remus, let's have that tea."

And then it was an hour of fumbling with cups and munching on sandwiches and sweets and filling up silences with conversations about nothing at all. Potter didn't say much; Lily wouldn't stop talking.

"And Dora says the Ministry's on lockdown, trying to figure out where the missing Time Turners have gone, and - where are you going?" Lily asked as I got to my feet.

"I'll be back."

Potter jumped up. "I've got to speak with you about something before you go."

He followed me into the kitchen, motioned that I should close the door, and then sagged against the wall and whispered, "Oh, Merlin!" in a miserable way.

"I've made a terrible mistake," he moaned, bracing his elbows against the counter and running his hands through his dark hair. "A terrible, terrible mistake."

"You're just embarrassed, that's all." I twisted on the faucet to cover our voices in case Lily could hear through the walls. "She's feeling embarrassed, too."

He let out a short, sarcastic laugh. "I'd forgotten how treacherously _beautiful_ she is."

I slapped his shoulder. "You're acting like a little boy. Not only that, but you're being rude. Lily is sitting out there all by herself."

He took a deep breath. "I don't like her just for her beauty," he said, staring at the counter. "I like her - _love _her - for so much more than that." He ran his hand over his hair once more. "She's a _firecracker_, Remus. She stands up to people - stands up for herself - and she's direct, she's not afraid to tell people exactly what she thinks of them, high society be damned." He finally looked at me. "I don't know why I thought someone like her would wait for me."

"Go tell her all of that."

He smirked, but it was pained.

"I mean it," I said forcefully. "Take the risk. Be a Gryffindor."

Something in that sentence - my tone, perhaps, or maybe the name of his former house - made Potter snap out of his misery and pull himself together. "You're right," he said, and he went back out into the dining room.

I didn't follow. I walked out the back way and began to wander through Godric's Hollow. I didn't mind getting wet from the rain - on the contrary, I rather preferred going for walks when it was stormy. It cleared my head.

As I walked down the street, it dawned on me that I didn't know any of my neighbors except for Potter. There were ten houses on my street alone; some of them would be muggles, but some might be wizards, and maybe one was a lonely bachelor with a furry little problem, just like mine. It would have been easy to meet them. Knock on a door, exchange names, offer a smile. Easy.

(But I didn't do it, and in the end, I don't think I regretted not doing it, either.)

Up and down the streets I walked, imagining the kinds of families living in each house, pretending I knew them. The rain had begun to let up by the time I started wandering back toward my own street. It didn't occur to me how long I'd been out until I saw a copy of The Evening Prophet lying on the pavement in front of Number 119. Ordinarily I wouldn't have given it a second glance, but the headline on that evening's edition featured a name I knew.

"Longbottoms Hospitalized After Brutal Torture," the text said, and, with a quick glance to make sure Mrs. Number 119 wasn't peering out her window, I picked up the paper and began to read.

_Auror Frank Longbottom, 27, and wife Alice, 26, were transported to St. Mungo's this evening after enduring torture by means of the Cruciatus Curse. Suspects Bartemius Crouch Jr, Rabastan Lestrange, and husband and wife Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange (née Black) are in custody. _

_The Lestrange family is in charge of a questionably-legal betting organization that encourages patrons to place wagers on Quidditch teams participating in the World Cup, which will be held in Amsterdam this August. According to a source who wished to remain anonymous, Longbottom had found a way to cheat the system, and the owners took the matter into their own hands._

_The Lestranges and Crouch Jr. broke into Longbottom's house at approximately four o'clock this afternoon and tortured him and his wife to insanity. It is not known at this time whether they will recover. They are survived by their ten-month-old son, Neville Longbottom, who is currently in custody of the Ministry until arrangements can be - _

I dropped the paper.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

I came back in through the kitchen door with the Evening Prophet stuffed inside my jacket only to find Potter and Lily had abandoned their tea and were seated, quite close to one another, on the couch in the living room. Lily had slipped out of her shoes and tucked her bare feet up under her skirt; Potter, wearing a tender smile I had never seen, had his arm draped over the back of the couch, where it just barely brushed the nape of her neck.

I cleared my throat, and they sprang apart. "Where did you disappear to?" Lily asked, waving me over to the couch. "We finished the sandwiches without you."

"I went for a walk."

"Quite a long walk," Potter said, just as Lily cried, "But it's raining!"

"I needed some air."

"Oh, Remus, you're all wet." Lily began to draw her wand.

"Don't bother," I said, shrugging out of my jacket. "I'll be changing for bed soon anyway."

"Was that a hint?" Lily asked, raising her eyebrows. "Do you want me out of your house, Remus Lupin?"

Potter seized the opportunity. "You're welcome to come next door."

"I'd like to," she said as she manouvered her feet back into their shoes, "but I really shouldn't. It _is _late. I've got to get home to Harry."

"Harry?" Potter said, trying to appear nonchalant. "Is he your husband?"

Lily shook her head. "My son."

"Oh." Potter stood and retrieved his hat from the stand in the corner. "I'll walk you outside to your car," he offered.

"Actually," I said, "I've got something to discuss with you."

We watched Lily walked out the door alone and, with a little wave at her driver (who did not look the slightest bit upset about having to sit in the car through our four-hour tea), climbed into the backseat. As the car pulled out of my driveway, Potter turned to look at me. "It's torture," he said as we went back to the dining room table. "Watching her leave."

I handed him the newspaper.

He scanned the article, and his lovesick expression faded to one of solemnity. "Longbottom's been caught?"

I nodded.

"He's dead."

"Not dead," I said, pointing to a line in the article. "Just tortured."

Potter slammed the paper on the table. "You don't know those people. They don't let people get away with stealing from them. If Longbottom survives, they'll find a way to finish the job."

"What are _you _going to do?" I asked. "If they caught Longbottom, they're going to catch you, too."

"They won't catch me." But he'd gone white. "Frank Longbottom was too conspicuous. Always using magic around muggles, bragging about his successes - he told you all the details of his betting scam during our lunch the other day, and he didn't even know you."

"Someone could have overheard," I realized.

He nodded. "Me, I'm not an idiot. I keep things to myself. No Death Eater has any reason to come after me, you can count on that. And even if they try, they won't be able to find me. I have ways of disappearing."

"What if Longbottom talked?" I asked. "What if he told them you were part of the scam?"

Potter shook his head. "He wouldn't have done that."

"Not even under torture?"

Another head shake. "I'm not," he said, still staring at the paper. "Part of the scam, I mean. I never placed any bets. I didn't take one sickle from them."

I sank into a chair. "Then why are you wrapped up with Longbottom in the first place?"

Potter took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's the Time Turners," he said. "Do you know how they work?"

"They send you back in time, I imagine." And as I said it, the whole thing began to make sense.

"I could go back," he said with faraway eyes. "I could stop myself from joining the aurors. I could stay with her, be there for her." He closed his eyes. "It would all be different. All I needed was one bloody Time Turner, and I would have - I could have - " He let out a shuddery sigh. "But I suppose it's all useless now." He put his glasses back on. "If Longbottom's incapacitated, I have no way of procuring one."

We sat in silence for a few minutes. "Why were you gone so long?" I asked finally. "You disappeared for a year and a half. People thought you were dead. What happened?"

"It wasn't my choice, I can tell you that much."

"Why didn't you at least send her an owl when you made it back home?"

"I tried to get her to come to me," he said. "I threw the parties - I bought the mansion - she never came, she didn't notice. . . . "

I opened my mouth to say more - to chide him, perhaps, for not being brave enough to talk to Lily directly, or maybe to pry deeper into his history - but then I noticed the tears pooling in the corners of his eyes and the slight tremble of his hands as he tried to keep himself from sobbing; it reminded me eerily of my father in the weeks after I was attacked by Greyback, and so I said nothing at all.

* * *

Potter stopped his parties after that. People arrived dressed in their finery only to be turned away at the door by Mr. Dobby. They Apparated into the garden and came face to face with the terrifying Mr. Filch, who threatened them with a large rake until they cleared out. Eventually the news spread that the parties were no more, and by the time the full moon rolled around again Potter's house was quiet and empty every night.

Sometimes, if I happened to look out at just the right moment, I could see Lily's silhouette lounging in Potter's bedroom window.

The reporter showed up at my door on the morning just before the full moon. "Rita Skeeter, for the Daily Prophet." She kept her gaze locked on a point just between my eyes and spoke very rapidly. "Do you know Mr. Potter?"

I answered that I did.

"And do you have anything to say?"

"Anything to say about what?" I asked politely.

Rita Skeeter looked a little baffled. "Why - any statement to give out!"

"About what?"

It transpired after a confused five minutes that Rita Skeeter had heard Potter's name around her office on a connection that she either couldn't reveal or didn't fully understand. It was a slow week for news, so, armed with a bottle-green quill and a roll of parchment, she had hurried here "to see." Mr. Dobby had turned her away from the main house, she said, but as his neighbor, surely I must know something. Potter's reputation, spread around by the hundreds of people who had attended his parties (and were therefore experts on his past), had been steadily inflating all summer until he fell just short of News.

"I don't understand," I told the reporter, who still had yet to make eye contact with me. "What kind of statement do you want from me?"

"Anything." She waved her quill in the air excitedly. "Everything you know. The real story. Confirm some rumors. Is it true he came back from the dead? Is it true there's a tunnel under his house that connects with a vault in Gringotts?"

I managed to close the door on her, but not before she made me promise to owl her if I happened upon any information for her article. I watched from the kitchen window as she stepped off the porch and Disapparated, and when I was certain she wasn't coming back I went next door to talk to Potter himself.

"Welcome, Master Lupin," Mr. Dobby said when I rang the bell. I could hear Lily's laughter echoing upstairs, that wicked laugh that clinked like a stack galleons. "Shall I fetch Master Potter?"

I affirmed, and within moments the master of the house was sitting opposite me in the parlor while Miss Winky prepared a pot of tea. "What can I do for you?" Potter asked.

"I'll be quick," I said. "I didn't intend to pull you away from Mrs. Black."

"Miss Evans," he corrected automatically, and then he turned rather pink. "I - I mean - "

"Lily," I amended. Miss Winky pressed a teacup into my palm. "Thank you."

She gave me a quick nod.

"There was a reporter on my doorstep today," I said.

"A reporter?"

"She asked about you."

Potter sipped gently from his own teacup. "What did she want to know?"

"About your past. Whether or not you have a tunnel connecting your house to the bank."

He smirked. "I started that rumor myself, you know."

I didn't ask him why.

"Did you tell her it was true?" he asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I didn't know whether it was."

He set his teacup down. "You don't know much about my past."

It wasn't a question, so I didn't answer.

"I haven't told anyone about my past," he admitted quietly. "Nobody knows, not even Lily."

I sipped my tea.

"I'm muggleborn," he said finally. "My parents had no idea I was anything but average until I was four years old when I fell into a pond and didn't drown - didn't even _sink_. I just sort of sat there on the surface, as if it were made of the sturdiest glass. My parents didn't understand it. They brought me to doctors, priests, old women who claimed they could see the future. . . . nobody could explain what was wrong with me, why I was different. It terrified them, I think. My parents were too afraid of me to be able to love me. So they dumped me in an orphanage when I was five and never looked back."

The pain in his eyes was intimately familiar.

"I ran away from that place when I was seven - I still didn't know I was a wizard, mind you. I just knew I could do things other people couldn't. But I wasn't afraid of living on the streets. I thought I was God. It was the best explanation I could come up with. I adopted the notion that I was the most powerful thing in the world, and I would survive wherever I went because nothing would be able to hurt me." He laughed. "I suppose that's where the Gryffindor in me comes from."

I laughed once, too.

"It wasn't until I was nine - eight or nine, I'd lost track by then - that I found answers. There was a girl about my age, maybe a bit older. She was walking along by the river with her parents when a large dog burst from an alley and knocked her into the water. She tried to swim, but her clothes weighed her down, and she was screaming. . . ." His eyes were glazed, as if he could still see the scene in front of him.

"I didn't even think about it," he whispered. "I ran in after her. Only I did it again - I stood on top of the water as if it were glass, and I pulled her up into my arms and carried her to shore." Suddenly Potter looked directly into my eyes. "And she didn't think there was anything _odd _about it at all."

"She was a witch," I confirmed, and he nodded.

"It was the parents who explained it all to me. Magic, Hogwarts, everything. They wanted to adopt me, but they had their hands full with three daughters of their own. They promised to find me a good home with magical parents; in the end I went to live with their distant relatives. Dorea and Charlus Potter." He smiled a little. "I took on their last name. I couldn't remember what mine used to be."

"And why should I believe you?" I asked when it was clear he wasn't going to say anything else. "You said yourself you make up rumors for the press."

"Believe me, don't believe me, I don't care what you do. But it's true."

A short pause. "Did you ever see the girl again?" I asked.

He shrugged. "At school, every so often. We lost touch after Hogwarts."

"What happened to her?"

"She's a Death Eater now." His smile hardened. "Goes by the name of Bellatrix Lestrange."

* * *

I went to Lily's that evening just before the full moon rose and was surprised when Dora was the one to answer the door. "Back for another round, eh?" she said when I came through the door.

"Every month," I said dryly. "Is Mr. Black home?"

"He's out with his girl," Dora said, closing the door behind me. "And Lily is simply _exhausted _from spending the day with her man." She winked. "She's upstairs with the baby. She knew you were coming, she asked me to let you in."

"Thank you."

She offered me a seat on the couch. "You've got a bit, haven't you, before the moon rises?"

I did, so I took the seat.

"Lily's distraught," she told me. "James wants her to leave Sirius."

"Is she going to?" I asked.

"She isn't sure." Dora shifted a little on the couch until her leg was pressed up against mine. "She's considered leaving in the past. This isn't Sirius' first girl."

"He's had others?"

Dora began to tick them off on her fingers. "Mary MacDonald. Emma Vanity. Bertha Jorkins. That girl who runs the pub in Hogsmeade - Rosmerta."

"All since he's been married to Lily?" I asked.

Dora nodded. "What about you?" she asked, blinking up at me with large blue eyes. "How many women have you been with?"

"I haven't," I said. "It isn't safe for me to get so close to people like. They might - find out."

"About your lycanthropy?" Dora was staring at my lips. "You don't have any girl special enough to let in on the secret?"

"Lily's the only one who - "

"Do you love her?" Dora asked.

"Like a sister."

"But not like a lover?"

"Never."

"Do you love me?" she whispered, and she was so close I could feel the heat of her skin.

"The moon," I said quickly, jumping up. "I have to go upstairs, before it's too late."

"You don't have time to answer one little question?"

I didn't look at her as I headed for the stairs. "Ask me in the morning," I said. She started to answer, but I was already out of hearing range.

"Oh, Remus!" Lily called as I hurtled past the second story landing. "So sorry I couldn't meet you at the door."

"All fine," I said over my shoulder, and then I came face to face with the attic door and threw myself inside. The prickle began as I collapsed on my cot, and for the first time in my life, I was relieved: prickling was far less terrifying than the tingling sensation Dora had left on my skin with her breath.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

She was waiting for me the next morning when I stumbled out of the attic around eleven o'clock.

"Did you have time to consider?" she asked without preamble.

I had.

"And what do you think?"

I sighed. "Love is a strong word, Dora."

"Like, then? Do you like me?"

"Of course I do."

She reached for my arm. I yanked it away from her terrifying touch. "Then why won't you let me near?"

"It's just - you know what I am."

"I do know." She was reaching out again, and again I shied away. "I know, and I don't care."

"I'm bad for you," I said. "Look at you. You're young, and whole. You have a future. Find yourself someone who isn't going to put you in constant danger."

She smirked, but there was a touch of sadness in her eyes. "Maybe I like danger."

"You shouldn't."

Her hand skimmed across my shoulder, my neck, my cheek. "Maybe I like _you_."

"You shoudn - "

She rose to meet my lips, and after that all that was left was surrender.

* * *

For several weeks I heard nothing from Potter. I was in London, for the most part, trotting around with Dora and popping in to see Lily. I barely went home. I slept wherever Dora slept - there were more than enough spare bedrooms at Grimmauld Place. It was a whirlwind affair in which every shape and color in the world was Miss Tonks, and even as the days whipped past I felt somehow outside of time.

It was the day before the next full moon when I finally saw Potter in the last place I expected him to be.

"Who's at the door?" Sirius asked from the head of the table. We'd taken to dining outside on the patio for lunch. It was Lily's idea - she said she liked to admire the houses on the other side of the lake. "Did you hear the bell, Moony?"

"I'll get it," Lily said, pushing away from the table and going inside. As soon as she was gone, Sirius leaned over and beckoned to me.

"I'm going into London tomorrow to see Marlene," he said. "You and Miss Tonks should come with me."

"Full moon tomorrow," I reminded him, immensely glad I had a plausible excuse.

"Too bad." He sighed. "It's much more fun with another couple there."

Perhaps thankfully, I didn't get the chance to ask what he meant by that, because at that moment Dora gasped and sent me a hard kick under the table. I looked up just in time to see Potter walk out onto the patio, followed closely by a worried-looking Lily, who was clutching at the pearls around her neck. "Darling," she said to her husband. "This is James Potter."

Sirius stood and offered his hand. "I've heard of you," he said. "You throw the parties."

Potter nodded. Neither of them were smiling. "I believe we have met somewhere before, Mr. Black."

"Oh, yes," said Sirius, gruffly polite, but obviously not remembering. "So we did. I remember very well."

"At Hogwarts. Years ago."

"You're a Hogwarts man?"

"That's how I met your wife." Potter kept his face in a careful neutral expression.

"That so?"

Behind him, Lily nodded.

"We'll all come to your next party, Mr. Potter," Dora interjected smoothly. "What do you say?"

"Certainly." He hadn't taken his eyes off Sirius. "I'd be delighted to have you."

"What are you doing here?" Sirius asked.

"_Sirius_," Lily hissed.

"Miss Evans invited me."

Sirius' eyebrows shot up. "She's Mrs. Black, actually."

Potter's lips twitched. "Forgive me. I knew her as Miss Evans, and in my mind, she remains Miss Evans."

"I wanted him to meet our son," Lily said quickly as Sirius drew breath to speak. "Mr. Potter and I haven't seen each other in many years. I ran into him yesterday while you lot were out in London, and we got to talking, and he said he'd like to meet Harry."

"Go get Harry, then," Sirius said, slamming his glass down on the table. It cracked into two neat pieces. Lily set her jaw and marched into the house.

"_Reparo_," I muttered, and the glass flew back together, but there was no saving the wine that dripped down the tablecloth.

"Got a bit of a temper, there, haven't you," Potter said quietly, and then he had the nerve to smirk.

Sirius returned with a smirk of his own. "You'll have to forgive my wife," he said. "She can be a bit of an idiot."

"On the contrary," said Potter. "Lily is a remarkable woman. You're very lucky."

"Here he is," Lily said, coming back outside with a toddler balanced against her hip. "This is our Harry."

The dark-haired boy clutched to his mother's shirt, but with some gentle prodding he allowed himself to be set down.

"Say hello, Harry," Lily said gently.

Harry looked up at his audience with his wide, green eyes that matched Lily's perfectly in color and shape. "Dadadadada," he prattled, hoisting himself to his feet with the aid of Lily's empty chair.

"Isn't he precious," Dora said, leaning down to stroke the baby's hair.

Potter said nothing.

Neither did Sirius.

They were both staring at the boy - Sirius as if he had never seen him before, Potter as if he were intimately familiar.

Harry Black may have inherited his mother's eyes, but his thick hair and his broad nose and his square chin were one hundred percent Potter.

"Well?" Lily said, and her smile was almost smug. "Don't you think our son is lovely, James?"

Potter swallowed hard. "Hullo, Harry," he whispered, reaching down to touch the baby's hand. Harry let out a squeal and closed his fist around Potter's index finger.

"Enough." Sirius was on his feet, eyes wild. "You." He pointed at Potter. "Don't touch my son."

"Our son," Lily corrected quietly, and everyone knew what she meant.

"Don't touch _my _- "

An owl came out of the sky and landed artfully on the table just in front of Sirius. The master of the house unwound the letter from around its feet and glanced at the handwriting. Potter still hadn't let go of the baby.

"For me?" The words flew from Lily's mouth like darts.

Sirius looked up. There was fury in his eyes, but also the pain of betrayal. "For me." He didn't seem to notice the fist he had crunched around the letter. "Excuse me."

When he was gone, Lily moved to Potter's side and pulled his face down, kissing him on the mouth. "You know I love you," she murmured.

Dora coughed gently. "You forget there's a lady present," she said loftily.

Baby Harry was still holding on to a chair for balance. "Dowwa!" he cried gleefully.

"Yes, your auntie Dora thinks they're being disgusting," Dora cooed, tousling his hair.

"Dada?" Harry said, abandoning the chair and crawling madly toward his mother. "Dadadadada. . . ."

"Where could Daddy be?" Lily asked playfully, scooping him into her arms. "Where did he go?"

Potter put his hand on Lily's shoulder. "Lily," he whispered. "Is it . . . is he . . ."

The glass door to the patio slid open, and Sirius stepped back out. Potter jumped away from Lily, face burning. "Who was your letter from, dear?" asked Lily.

"An associate in London. He wants me to come immediately."

"All the way to London?"

"Yes. They want to meet me Leaky Cauldron." He wouldn't make eye contact with her. "Lupin? Are you coming?"

"Why would Remus go with you to meet a business associate?" Lily asked.

"I didn't say it was for business."

(We all knew exactly what it was for, and I didn't understand why nobody had come out and said it yet.)

"A day trip to London," Dora said before Lily could fire anything back. "It sounds lovely. We should all go."

"We were just in London yesterday," I said.

"No," Lily said. "I think it's a great idea." She handed Harry to one of the staff that always seemed to be hanging about. "James, would you like to join us?"

Potter still looked rather ill. "Oh, I don't want to intrude. . . ."

"Join us," Lily said, and Potter gave in.

"Brilliant." I had never seen Sirius look so angry. "Remus, take the motorbike with me."

Sirius' flying motorcycle was his pride and joy - he'd enchanted it himself - and he only pulled it out of the garage when he was feeling particularly reckless. "There's only one sidecar," I said. "Where will Dora sit?"

"On your lap, I imagine," Dora said with a wink.

"Dora can Floo with Lily and Mr. Potter," Sirius said.

"Or James and I can take the bike," Lily said, "and you three can take the Knight Bus. We can race."

Sirius looked like he might throw up at the thought of James Potter touching his motorcycle.

"I think it's a fine idea," said Dora, who was either oblivious to the tension or intentionally trying to make it worse.

"_Fine_," spat Sirius. "_Fine._"

Lily looked like she wanted to fire back, but she settled for glaring at him with those piercing eyes. "Fine," she said coolly and she very deliberately took Potter's hand. "The garage is this way," she said, leading him back into the house. The uncomfortable silence on the porch was broken by the sound of the motorcycle's engine turning over, and then Sirius threw his napkin on the table with unnecessary force and stalked into the house. Dora followed immediately; I stayed outside long enough to watch the bike take off into the air before I joined them.

"Knight Bus, then?" I asked, but Dora shook her head and motioned for me to keep quiet.

"Floo powder," Sirius said, seizing a handful of the stuff from a jar on his coffee table. "I'm not taking the bus like some - some - "

"Peasant?" offered Dora, and he made a motion that could have been either a nod or a shrug.

"And I'm not letting him get there ahead of me," Sirius added, stepping into the fireplace. He raised his fistful of powder over her head. "_Diagon _- "

His voice broke. He closed his eyes. Opened. Stared directly at me.

"Is she with him?" he asked. His voice was raw.

"I - I don't know," I said, even though I did.

"_Is she with him?_"

"Sirius, it's not my place to say."

"_I need to know!_" It was the closest I'd ever seen him get to tears. "I need to know."

It was Dora who finally said it. "Yes."

Sirius' lower lip trembled just once. "Did she even love me? Or did she just marry me because of the - because she was - because Harry - "

"She tried to love you," Dora said - and it wasn't rude, it wasn't accusatory, it was just the truth falling from the mouth of someone who was caught in the middle. "She never knew if you returned the sentiments."

"How could she possibly doubt - "

"Because of the other women, I'd imagine," Dora said. "Because you weren't satisfied with just her, you needed Marlene, and Rosmerta, and Emma, and Mary, and - "

"_DIAGON ALLEY._"

And the green flames swooped up and swallowed the man in the fireplace.

(But not before I saw the tears well up in his eyes.)

* * *

When we caught up to Sirius, he was already at the bar with Marlene.

"Ah, here you lot are!" he said, passing me a tankard full of what smelled like tar. "And one for Miss Tonks, as well, would you?" he added to Pettigrew, who was standing behind the counter next to his wife.

"Just a butterbeer for me, actually," Dora said, drumming her fingernails gently against the counter.

Sirius snorted. "Just a butterbeer, then," he said in a mocking, girlish voice, and it was as if he was trying to be as much of a brute as possible to make up for the way he'd lost control of his emotions back at the house.

Marlene smirked and leaned over against the counter. "I like butterbeer," she said.

"I know exactly what you like," Sirius said with a rather exaggerated wink.

I nudged his arm. "Pettigrew is _right there_," I whispered.

Sirius pushed me away.

"What makes you think you know what I like?" Marlene asked, raising her dark eyebrows.

He grinned roguishly. "Judging by the number of times you begged me not to stop, I'd say I have a pretty good idea of what you like."

I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

"Oh?" Marlene tapped her long nails, which were painted black and filed into points, against his tankard. "And what if I told you," she said, idly tracing patterns into the condensation on his mug, "that I'm just a good actress?"

"Is that so?"

"It is." She blinked at him.

"Then I suppose you won't miss me if I just stay home tonight."

With a quick glance at her husband (who was busy trying to sort through a pile of receipts), Marlene grabbed Sirius by his tie and pulled him across the counter. "I wouldn't miss you at all," she breathed. "Everything you do to me I can do to myself just fine."

Sirius let out a low groan.

Marlene didn't miss it. "Ah," she said, falling back into that smirk. "Seems like _you _need _me_."

He grinned. "I can do it to myself just as well as you," he said, but he was a little breathless.

"Baby, we both know that's not true." She pulled on his tie a little harder, until he was an inch from her lips. "Beg," she whispered.

He laughed. "Never."

"Fine." She let go of his tie. "I won't see you tonight, then."

I waited for one of them to call the other's bluff.

"Here's a butterbeer for the lady," Pettigrew said with a smile that was equal parts cheery and oblivious.

"Thank you," Dora said, reaching across Sirius to grab her drink.

"You know what, Peter?" Marlene said as she looked directly at Sirius, a wicked glint in her eye. "My sister just sent a letter, she doesn't need me to come watch her son tonight after all."

Sirius' jaw tightened.

Marlene winked.

"She decided not to go out, then?" Pettigrew said. "So you'll be here all night to help with the bar?"

Sirius mouthed the word _begging_.

There was a gleam of triumph in her eyes. "You didn't let me finish," Marlene snapped, turning to her husband for the first time. "I said she doesn't need me to watch her son. She's still going out. She wants me to join her. A little sisterly bonding time. Merlin knows we need it."

"Oh," Pettigrew said. He looked a little deflated. "I see." He licked his lips. "Marley," he said hesitantly, "is there any chance you could be - "

The front door opened, and Lily and Potter came through the door looking windswept and exhilarated.

Marlene's face twisted into an ugly expression. "What's _she _doing here?" she hissed.

"Who?" asked Pettigrew, following his wife's gaze to the couple at the door.

"You lot certainly took your time," Sirius said coolly.

"James got lost," Lily said with that red-lipped smile that made her whole face light up. "A butterbeer, please," she added to Pettigrew as she took the barstool next to her husband.

"Butterbeer," Marlene scoffed loudly, and Lily blinked.

Dora looked down at her own butterbeer and shrugged.

"And for you?" Peter asked, looking at Potter.

He waved his hand. "Nothing for me."

"What," Marlene said to Potter, "there isn't anything you want?"

"Not at the moment."

"Nothing at all? Nothing in this whole pub?" Marlene reached across the counter to touch his shoulder.

Pettigrew's eyes grew wide.

Sirius drained his tankard and slammed it down so hard that it broke.

Potter smiled uncomfortably. "I'm fine."

"Just fine?" Marlene purred with a quick glance to make sure Sirius was watching. "Is there anything I can do to make you feel . . . euphoric?"

Pettigrew's jaw dropped.

"Maybe a glass of water?" Potter said.

"Of course. And please, let me show you to a booth. It's much nicer than the bar." She had her hand on his arm again.

"I'll go with you," Lily announced, jumping up.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Pettigrew beckoned to us to lean in for a secret. "That man," he said. His breath was putrid. "Do you know him well?"

"Not particularly," Sirius said icily.

"He's a neighbor," Dora offered. "Lives at number 219 in Godric's Hollow. By the lake."

"He's the one who throws all the parties," I added.

Pettigrew nodded. "Do you think - I've been suspicious for awhile now that Marlene is - that she's been lying to me about her sister." He licked his lips. "I think she might be seeing someone behind my - I'm worried she's been unfaithful."

Sirius' eyes gleamed with hatred. "I don't know about Marlene, but James Potter tends to fancy married women," he said.

Marlene chose that moment to let out a shriek of laughter and tousle Potter's hair.

Peter swallowed hard. "Excuse me, please," he said, throwing his dishrag at the sink and retreating into the back room.

Dora sighed and leaned her head against my shoulder. "I'd like to avoid all this drama, Remus, so I'll ask you outright: have you got a girl?"

"No," I answered, and then, because the tar Sirius had made me drink was doing funny things to my brain: "Not unless you count Potter."

She laughed, and Sirius even chuckled once, but his gaze never left the booth in the corner. He flicked his eyes back and forth between the three of them: wife, lover, rival. The blend of envy and hatred and despair in his face made him look so dark that I had to turn away.

* * *

I didn't know about the next part until years later, when the whole story came out in the papers, but it turned out that Pettigrew had not run into the back room simply to cry.

There was a flight of stairs that led down to a cellar, where Pettigrew kept the wine, and beyond that was a small closet that held brooms and mops, and within the closet was a hidden door that opened onto a secret panic room.

It was there that Pettigrew summoned Lord Voldemort.

"My Lord," Peter Pettigrew said when his master appeared.

I never saw Lord Voldemort, but I imagine he must have been tall, with dark hair and red eyes, and I imagine he had thin lips and a cruel grin, and sharp teeth and nails filed into claws.

(To be perfectly honest, when I imagined Lord Voldemort, I saw a werewolf.)

"What is it, Wormtail," Voldemort said uninterestedly.

"It's my wife - Marlene - I've just discovered she's having an affair, and I - "

"And so you felt the need to come blubbering to me?"

Pettigrew swallowed. "I hoped you might - I thought maybe - you could force her - "

"Force her? Force her to stay with you? To love you?"

"Yes," Pettigrew whispered.

"Lord Voldemort is a busy man, Wormtail."

"I know, My Lord, I just - "

"He does not have time to waste playing _matchmaker_."

"Please, Master, I - "

"_Crucio_."

(Even upstairs in the bar, we all heard that scream.)

"_Please_, My Lord." Pettigrew was sobbing.

"Love is a weakness," Lord Voldemort said without emotion. "Your love for your wife has caused you pain. Isn't that right, Wormtail?"

"_Yes,_" he gasped.

"And yet she suffers no pain, because she does not love you."

Pettigrew clenched his jaw tightly. "It isn't fair."

Voldemort smiled. "What would make it fair?"

"My Lord?"

"Would it be fair if she decided she loved you?"

Pettigrew nodded.

"Wrong, Wormtail, it wouldn't. It only becomes fair when she suffers as greatly as you do."

"You want - to torture her?"

"No." Voldemort, I imagine, must have been losing patience. "I want you to _leave _her."

Pettigrew gasped. "I couldn't."

Footsteps on the stairs - upstairs, Sirius had thrown a punch and broken the peg on a shelf, causing all the wine bottles to fall and break, and Marlene had agreed to run to the cellar and fetch some more.

"Who's coming?" Voldemort asked, tilting his head very slightly.

"My wife," Pettigrew whispered. "It has to be."

Voldemort shoved Pettigrew aside and burst from the broom cupboard.

"Peter, what the hell are you - " Then she saw him. Dropped the wine bottle. Screamed.

"_Avada kedavra_."

"_NO!_" screamed Pettigrew.

Marlene crumpled to the stone floor, slicing her palm open on a shard of glass.

"There," Voldemort said calmly as Pettigrew ran to embrace his wife. "Now she is no longer unfaithful."

"I didn't want you to kill her," Pettigrew sobbed. "Not her. Potter!"

Voldemort's eyes brightened. "Potter?" he asked. "What Potter?"

"James Potter. The one she was sleeping with!"

Voldemort exhaled slowly. The cruel grin spread across his face. "James Potter," he whispered. "That is a name I haven't heard in a very long time. Where does he live?" he asked, nudging Pettigrew with his foot.

Pettigrew didn't look up from Marlene's body. "Godric's Hollow."

"I need an _address_," and he aimed another kick at Pettigrew.

"I don't know - wait, yes, I do. Number 119. By the lake." Pettigrew sniffled. "He's the one who throws the parties."

Voldemort's grin stretched across his face. "You have done well, Wormtail," he said.

"Marlene," Pettigrew blubbered.

"We'll find you a new wife," Voldemort promised. "A better one. One who will _worship _you. Lord Voldemort rewards his best servants."

Pettigrew finally looked up. "R-reward?" he asked.

"Yes." Voldemort started toward the broom cupboard. "Your wish is granted, Wormtail. I'm going to kill James Potter." And with a _crack_, Voldemort Apparated away, leaving Pettigrew alone in the cellar, surrounded by a pool of wine and a body that wasn't yet cold.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Have you ever met Marlene before?" Lily asked Potter after the woman in question trotted downstairs to fetch a new bottle of wine. We had all gathered back around the bar - Potter hadn't liked the booth - and Sirius was standing by the sink, letting cold water run over the knuckles he'd bruised by throwing a punch at the wall.

"Never," Potter said. "Why?"

"She seemed awfully friendly, for a stranger."

Sirius snorted. "She's always like that."

"Oh?" Lily raised her eyebrows. "Have _you _ever met Marlene before, Sirius?"

"She's a waitress," Sirius said, shutting off the water. "She brings in better tips by being friendly. It's common bloody sense."

Lily's eyes were stormy. "Is that _so_, Sirius Black?"

"Lily," Dora hissed.

"Do you think I'm lying?" Sirius shot back, drying his hand on his shirt.

"Let's all calm down," I said, but I might as well have been invisible.

"I think you've lied to me before!" Lily said.

"What are you saying?"

"I think you know exactly what I'm saying."

"I don't," Dora volunteered, but the spark in her eyes gave her away.

"Why are you riling them up?" I asked. "Why would you say something to rile them up, when you know exactly what kind of tempers they have?"

"Just come out and say it, Lily," Sirius shouted. The few pub patrons that weren't part of our little group were staring. "If we both know what you're saying, why don't you put it into words?"

"Because I'm giving you the chance to come clean like a decent human being!"

"Oh, now I'm not _decent_?"

"Sirius," I said quickly. "Sirius, please, just take a deep breath."

"No," Lily said hotly, "you _aren't_ decent, because you're sleeping with Marlene McKinnon, because apparently your wedding vows don't mean a _thing _to you."

"You're one to talk," Sirius snarled, "about wedding vows."

"Go ahead, Sirius!" There were tears in Lily's eyes. "Go on, accuse me! Tell me how horrible I am, tell me why you're incapable of being faithful to me!"

"You only married me," Sirius said, and it was significantly softer than I had expected, "because you were pregnant, and the father was unavailable."

It wasn't the route any of us had expected him to take.

"You didn't love me," he continued. "You have never loved me, not even for one _moment_. I was just your _excuse._ You would have married _anyone_, I'm just the first one who asked. So don't you _dare_ accuse me of not meaning my wedding vows, Lily, because if it's dishonesty we're arguing about, I think we both know who's at fault."

The pub was silent.

Lily pressed her lips together into a tight line. "I wanted to love you," she whispered, sinking into the barstool. "I tried. But I - I couldn't - "

"Because you were still in love with him." Sirius nodded. "I know. I understand."

"And I just - I wish - I thought he was dead," she said miserably.

"And you threw yourself at the next man who looked at you," Sirius continued, and his tone was harsh again, "because you needed a father for your baby, you couldn't handle the shame of mothering a _bastard_, no, the perfect Lily Evans couldn't let anyone know she was a whore - "

"Wrong." Lily was on her feet again, eyes _blazing_. "I did not use you, Sirius Black, don't you ever accuse me of that."

"Then why?" His knuckles had started to bleed again.

"Because I thought if I made things official by marrying you, I'd be able to stop yearning for a past that was so hopelessly out of reach, and then I'd have a prayer of moving on with my life and learning to love someone new." She shook her head. "Too bad a week into our marriage you were already seeing another girl on the side."

"If I could step in for a moment," Potter began, but Dora grabbed his wrist and yanked him back.

"Don't get involved," she warned.

"No, let him." Lily took hold of his other wrist and pulled him to her side. "This all started with James, he deserves to be part of it."

"You shout at me over Marlene," Sirius said, "and then flaunt your own unfaithfulness in front of me?"

"I _love _him," Lily said fiercely. "Do you love Marlene? Did you love Rosmerta? Did you love any of them? Did you love _me_, for even _one second_?"

"No!" shouted Sirius. "No, I didn't love any of them!"

"Well that just makes it worse, doesn't it! You ran off to sleep with everyone, regardless of whether you liked them or not. Nice to see you have standards."

"What about Potter?" Sirius roared. "Do you think Potter didn't have another girl during the year and a half he disappeared?"

Lily turned to look at him, eyes still fixed in a glare meant for her husband. "Did you?"

Potter swallowed. "I can't talk about it."

"Hah!" Sirius pounded his good fist against the counter in triumph. "You see?"

"I didn't have a girl," Potter said quickly. "Lily, I honestly didn't."

"Where were you?" she asked. "Why did you go?" The tears were back, threatening to overflow. "James, why did you leave?"

"I really didn't know it would take so long," he said. "It was a mission for Dumbledore - against You-Know-Who. I had to find something he needed. I was the only one who could do it."

"Why?" asked Dora. I elbowed her in the ribs.

"Why?" echoed Lily.

Potter swallowed again. "I really can't say anything about it."

Lily took a step away from him. "There _was_ a girl, wasn't there."

"No." He groped for her hand, but she was out of reach. "Lily, I swear, there was no other girl."

"Then why can't you tell me what you were doing?"

"Please, just trust me."

Lily's eyes flicked back to Sirius. "I can't trust anyone anymore."

"Where's Marlene with that wine?" Dora wondered aloud.

"Tell me," Lily ordered.

"I can't. Not with everyone else here. If it were only you, I'd - "

"Well, the only people here are you, me, Remus, Sirius, and Dora," she snapped. I looked over my shoulder; sure enough, the other patrons had left sometime during the shouting. "And of those people, one of them is my best friend, and one of them is _your _best friend, so they'd find out eventually anyway. And as for Sirius - "

Sirius looked miserable.

" - I want Sirius to know," Lily finished softly. "Please."

Potter closed his eyes. "Fine."

"Thank you."

He nodded. "There is a children's story," he said quietly, "called the Deathly Hallows."

Lily sat in the stool next to him and let him take her hand.

"I assume you've all heard it: three brothers, three gifts. The Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, the Invisibility Cloak."

A snort from Sirius.

Potter glared. "Well, they're real," he snapped. "Dumbledore had an inkling they existed, and he sent spies out to find them. I was one of them, along with Frank Longbottom and a boy called Fabian."

"Did you find them?" Dora asked.

"Why did he pick you?" Lily asked at the same time.

Potter ignored Dora. "He chose me because I knew where to find one of them. The Cloak. I'd seen it before."

"Where?"

He squeezed Lily's hand. "It was years ago, when I was very young. I had a - a friend, I suppose is the easiest way to describe her. A very close friend. I saved her life once, and in return she invited me to live in her house while I sorted out some family problems."

I knew he was talking about Bellatrix Lestrange, but I kept my mouth closed.

"One night, when it was very late, she brought me into her bedroom and showed me a blanket she'd found in the attic. When she wrapped it around herself, it made her disappear. She wanted to use it to sneak around, pull pranks on her sisters - that sort of thing. I didn't know what it was. I hadn't ever heard the stories. And I don't think my friend knew, either. We just thought it was a fun toy."

"So skip ahead to the present," Lily said icily. "It took you a year and a half to, what, send her an owl? Or did one owl turn into a _correspondence_, and did that turn into meeting up, and did that turn into staying the night?"

"_Stop_, Lily. It wasn't like that. Not at all."

"Oh? Why not?"

"It wasn't as simple as sending an owl. My friend and I weren't on the best terms. We grew apart after Hogwarts. She wanted different things than I did."

In the back of my mind, I began to wonder where Marlene had gone - I didn't find out until later that she was already dead - and why there was a faint sobbing sound coming from downstairs.

"She's a Death Eater," Potter said finally. "Bellatrix Lestrange."

"Bellatrix?" Sirius and Dora said it at the same time.

"What," Lily said nastily, whipping her head to look at her husband, "did you sleep with her, too, Sirius?"

"She's my cousin, actually," he shot back.

Lily raised her eyebrows. "That never came up in conversation."

"Funnily enough, I try not to associate myself with her."

"She's my aunt," Dora said, "and I do the same thing."

"She's your _aunt?_" I asked.

"I've never met her," Dora said. "She and my mum had a falling-out before I was born. But yes, technically speaking, she is my dear old Auntie Bella."

Lily's eyes were back on Potter. "So you owled Bellatrix. And then what?"

He shook his head. "It wasn't that simple. I had to track her down, tell her I'd changed my mind - tell her I wanted to join the Death Eaters - I had to pass tests, endure tortures. I met You-Know-Who. I let him pull my memories apart. I had to fully commit myself to the task so that he wouldn't see my true intentions. I couldn't let myself think of going back." He was looking at Lily again. "I couldn't let myself think of you."

She closed her eyes.

"They gave me this." He rolled up his sleeve and showed us his forearm.

"The Dark Mark," Dora said, in case any of us couldn't recognize the symbol branded on Potter's skin.

All doubts of Potter's story being falsehood were gone, in my mind, after that.

"I had to run around with them for a year before Bellatrix would trust me," he said. "I worked my way into the Inner Circle. Heard their plans, helped them _make _their plans. . . . There were times when even I wasn't sure which side I was on."

(Sirius had his head in his hands, and again I wondered what was taking Marlene so long in the cellar.)

"I was in charge of planning an attack on the Ministry. The Department of Mysteries. They say there's a room there that contains a door to Death's domain - and I know it sounds silly, but if the Hallows were real, why not the personification of Death, too? You-Know-Who wanted access to that door. He wanted to walk through and kill Death itself. He wanted to take its place, I think, though he never admitted that part to me."

Potter's eyes, I noticed, were hollow. I couldn't tell if it was the story affecting him, or if he'd always looked that way and I'd just never noticed.

"I was going to go first. I was supposed to scout ahead, take out any guards, find the location of the door. The night before, I asked Bellatrix whether she still had that old Cloak that had turned us invisible when we were children. I told her it would be useful for the mission."

"And she gave it to you?" Lily asked. "Just like that?"

"No. She didn't have it anymore. She'd given it to You-Know-Who years before, when she was still a new recruit."

"So how did you get it?" Dora asked impatiently.

Potter shrugged. "I asked him for it."

"And . . . and _he _just gave it to you?" Lily asked.

"No, of course not. And I hadn't expected him to. He wanted to know why I needed it - obviously, I told him, I wanted to sneak into the Department of Mysteries undetected. But he said he was going to wear it himself, so that he could sneak up on Death and kill it quietly."

"Kill Death?" Sirius said. I hadn't realized he was still paying attention. "Sounds a bit paradoxical, don't you think?"

"You-Know-Who had it worked out, somehow. When the day came, it was just the two of us - I was disguised as a Ministry worker, he was under the Cloak. We walked in, stunned some guards, took the elevator down to the Department." He sighed. "We must have tried every door before we found the one we needed. There are rooms down there with phenomenons I can't even fathom. One chamber is filled to the brim with Time Turners."

He looked right at me as he said it.

"We found the door, finally. It looked like a big stone window with a veil hanging down in front. I went first; You-Know-Who followed me through with the Cloak. He promised that as soon as he'd vanquished Death, he'd make sure I got out again. But the problem was - and I don't think either of us anticipated this - the Cloak didn't work beyond the veil. It behaved like an ordinary cloak, and there was no hiding, not here, not in this vast ruin of a place."

"What was it like?" Dora whispered.

Potter shook his head. "Broken. So broken. Imagine Hogwarts reduced to rubble. Imagine a red sky and a hot desert. Part of me wondered whether the door was a time portal, and we'd stepped into the distant future, after the world ends and everything is dead."

"Was there anyone else there?" Lily asked.

"Empty. I don't know where the other souls were. Hiding, perhaps. Invisible. Or maybe they'd found their way out of there, to a better afterlife." He shrugged. "It didn't matter. You-Know-Who took off the useless Cloak and dropped it on the ground, and then we began to walk."

"Did you find him?" Dora asked. "Death?"

Potter shook his head. "I didn't. You-Know-Who might have, but I didn't."

"What do you mean?"

"I left. As soon as we stopped for the night, as soon as he fell asleep, I ran back the way we had come. I had to get the Cloak. I _had _to, or it would have all been for nothing."

Lily had both his hands gripped tightly in hers.

"It was right where we had left it, lying by the door. I scooped it up and tried to climb through the veil, but it didn't yield. It's a one-way portal. People don't come back from the dead, after all."

"How did you get out?" Lily whispered.

"I didn't know what to do. I was panicking. It had been a long walk - I was exhausted, and by this time You-Know-Who was probably awake and looking for me. I knew it wouldn't do any good, but I threw the Cloak over myself, just in case it had started working again, and I shoved at the veil one last time - and I came through. Crashed to the floor on the other side, Cloak draped across my shoulders."

"The Cloak was the key?" Lily asked.

Potter shrugged. "It allows you to hide from Death. Maybe that includes escaping death, as well. I didn't question it. I took the Cloak and ran out of there as fast as I could, and then the first thing I did, before I even sent a message to Dumbledore, was Apparate to your doorstep, Lily."

She shook her head. "You never - "

"Not Grimmauld Place." He was stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. "Your old house. Where you grew up. Your sister answered the door. She said you didn't live there anymore. She said you'd gotten married, that you were Lily Black now, and that you lived in a place called Godric's Hollow, and to please never bother her again."

Lily smirked, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Sounds like Petunia."

"So I bought the first house I could find in Godric's Hollow. I owled Dumbledore, sent him a full report, told him I had the Cloak and that You-Know-Who was stuck in Death's domain - although probably not indefinitely, because he still had his plan to kill Death, and I had no doubt that if anyone was capable of such a feat, it was the Dark Lord. I couldn't very well come knocking on your door - not if you were married - so I just . . . I started throwing parties and hoping you would attend."

"And then Remus moved in next door," Lily whispered. "And he came to one of your parties with Dora - "

"And I recognized her from Hogwarts." Potter nodded. "And that is how I spent the last year and a half."

He sat back, looking rather pleased with himself.

The five of us sat in silence for a moment, letting it all sink in.

"So what you're saying," I said slowly, "is that the rumor going around, about the tunnel under your house that connects to Gringotts, is a lie . . . but you actually _did _come back from the dead?"

He slid his glasses up his nose and grinned. "I suppose I did, didn't I?"

Lily made a little noise in the back of her throat and leaned forward to kiss him hard.

In unison, Dora and I snapped our heads to look at Sirius.

He wore a defeated expression.

"Fine," he said tiredly. "Fine."

He didn't say anything more, just rose from his bar stool and sauntered out of the Leaky Cauldron. I heard his motorcycle engine rev outside; it faded into the distance, and Dora and I exchanged a glance before we got up and moved to the fireplace to Floo back to Grimmauld Place.

Potter and Lily didn't appear to notice any of it. They were too wrapped up in each other.


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

We made it back to Sirius' house before Sirius himself.

"Nearly full moon," Dora said, leaning her head against my shoulder and looking out over the patio where the sun was setting.

"Tomorrow."

"Harry's birthday is tomorrow. He'll be one."

"What will happen to Harry?" I asked.

She shrugged. "He'll go with Lily, I imagine. I don't think Sirius has ever liked him much. I don't think he'll want the reminder."

"So she's going?" I asked. "She's really leaving Sirius?"

Dora shrugged again. "I don't know."

"And then - what about You-Know-Who? Do you think he's dead?"

"I don't _know_, Remus."

"I just mean, do you think he found some other way out? Maybe he killed Death after all, and - "

"_I said I don't know._" She had never snapped at me before.

The door opened, and Sirius came inside. "Are you going home tonight, Lupin?" he asked.

"Yes, he is," Dora said before I could answer.

"Good." He was heading upstairs. "Take this with you, then. To _his _house." He came back down the stairs with a barely-awake Harry cradled in his arms. "He should be with his _father_."

I didn't say anything, just accepted the bundle and started for the door. "Goodnight, Dora," I said.

She wouldn't look at me. "Goodnight, Remus."

* * *

Lily answered Potter's door when I knocked. "Harry!" she cried, taking her son from my arms. "Thank you, Remus." She stood on tiptoe to kiss my cheek.

"Where's Mr. Dobby?" I asked, for I'd been expecting the butler.

"Gone. They all are. James let them all go." She was pink with exhilaration. "We're moving in the morning. Somewhere far away from here. We're going to start over."

"Where?" I asked. "Maybe I'll visit you."

She smiled sadly and shook her head. "I don't want you to."

"Ah." I pursed my lips and smiled tightly. "Clean break, and all that."

"You understand, don't you, Remus? I don't want my son to know about any of this."

"I understand."

"I suppose this is goodbye, then," she said.

I nodded. "I suppose it is. Goodbye, Lily. I wish you the best of luck. And I hope - if You-Know-Who is out there, somehow, and if he's looking for Potter - I hope you stay safe."

She smiled. "We will. Thank you."

And she closed the door.

* * *

I was awakened just after midnight by a knock on my door.

"Wha happened?" I asked blearily, and then: "Dora? What's wrong?"

She fell into me, sobbing. "Lily and J-James," she bawled into my bathrobe. "Lily and James!"

"What happened?"

"They're _dead_."

"Dead?" Outside Potter's house, a crowd was gathering: witches and wizards and muggles and Dumbledore himself. "How?"

"You-Know-Who!"

I raced across the lawn, Dora in tow, to Dumbledore. My old Headmaster was talking to Sirius, who was leaning against his motorcycle with a hard expression on his face.

"Let me have the baby," he said, voice shaking. "Dumbledore. Please. Let me have him, let me have Harry, give me the baby, _give me the baby!_"

"Harry's _alive_?" I said incredulously. "How?"

"We don't know," Dumbledore said gravely. "We aren't sure what's happened, but Harry Black - "

"Potter," I corrected automatically. "Harry Potter."

"Harry _Potter_ is alive, and Lord Voldemort is nowhere to be found."

I didn't understand at first. "What, so he's hiding?"

"He's dead, Lupin," Sirius said. "They think Harry killed him."

"But - how could a _baby_ - "

"I don't know." Dumbledore looked worried. "I have a theory, but - "

"Give me my son," Sirius said. "I want my son."

"He isn't your son, Sirius," Dumbledore said quietly.

"He's as good as!"

"He'll be safer with a blood relative. If my theory is correct."

"Blood relative? Like who, Lily's sister?"

"It's the only real family Harry has left."

"That's _bullshit!_" Sirius roared, and I turned away and waded through the crowd. My vision was blurry. _Dead. Lily and Potter. Lily and James. Dead._

"Watch it!" cried a man as I stumbled into him.

"I'm sorry - Pettigrew?"

He blinked up at me. "Do I know you?"

"I was in the Leaky Cauldron yesterday," I told him.

"Oh. I right. I remember." He sucked in a breath. "They're saying You-Know-Who did this," he said.

"I know."

"They're saying somebody tipped him off. Somebody had a grudge against Mr. Potter, and they had an inside connection to the Death Eaters, so they just gave the address and You-Know-Who zipped over to kill him." He looked almost pleased to know that much information. "That's one powerful person, if You-Know-Who is taking orders from him."

"A grudge against Potter," I repeated, and my heart began to sink. "And an inside connection to the Death Eaters."

Pettigrew nodded. "There must be hundreds of people with grudges, though, if the rumors are true about Potter sleeping with married women."

My jaw tightened. "Yes. Excuse me." I turned on my heel and pushed back through the crowd until I was next to Sirius.

"You did this," I said, and I wasn't a violent person but I was _itching _to punch him.

"What?"

"To settle your grudge against Potter. You called in a favor with your cousin, Bellatrix!" I shouted. The people closest to me had turned to listen. "You told her where Potter lived, asked her to pass it along to You-Know-Who! You did this! It's your fault they're dead!"

"How could you even _think _I would - "

"Because he stole your wife! Your son! Your family! Come on, Sirius. I know you. You're the type of person with a temper, and you're the type of person who gets revenge."

He shook his head. "Remus. It wasn't me."

"Get away from this house!" I shouted, and he recoiled. "Just go. You don't deserve to be here."

He stared at me for three full seconds before he turned and climbed onto his motorcycle. "It wasn't me, Moony," he said. "It wasn't."

And part of me wanted so badly to believe him.

* * *

"Lily didn't want him to know," I said to Dumbledore when the crowd had cleared out. It was three o'clock in the morning; Sirius had come back, at Dumbledore's request, but the two of us weren't acknowledging each other. Dora was there, too, kneeling on the porch and crying quietly into her sleeve. "She wanted Harry to grow up far away from this place, these memories."

Dumbledore wove his long fingers together. "He will grow up with his aunt and uncle," he said. "As far from the magical community as one can get. Until his eleventh birthday, when he receives his Hogwarts letter."

"I don't understand," Sirius said, "why he can't live with me."

"It's the blood, Sirius. He needs a blood relative for the protection to stay alive."

"Protection," Sirius spat. "You still haven't explained this theory of yours, Dumbledore."

"It's an ancient magic. Love."

"Love?"

"If Lily died to save her son - which I believe she did, although we may never know for sure - then her sacrifice was what protected him from Voldemort's curse. That love created a magic more powerful than any dark spell. And as long as Lily's blood runs in her sister's veins, the magic will remain powerful."

Sirius closed his eyes. "That makes no sense."

"It's because of the blood - "

"Petunia doesn't love him!" Sirius shouted. "I do!"

"Do you?" I asked quietly.

"Of course I do. He's my _son_. Maybe not biologically, but I raised him as my son for a year."

"You gave him up," I said. "Last night. You handed him to me and told me to take him away."

Sirius looked away from me. "Give me something," he begged Dumbledore. "Give me anything."

"We have to rewrite it," I said. "We have to rewrite all of it. Lily didn't want Harry to know the truth; if you want to be involved in Harry's life, you can't ever tell him what really happened."

He looked at me. "Anything," he repeated.

"We'll tell him you met James at Hogwarts," I said. "Tell him you were his friend."

"_Best_ friends," Sirius said. "_Anything_. I'll tell him I was friends with bloody _Pettigrew _if I have to."

"Tell him you weren't the one who told You-Know-Who where to find his parents."

"I _didn't._" Sirius was getting worked up again. "That's the truth. But I'm going to find whoever did it, I promise you that."

"Sirius," Dumbledore warned. "Calm down."

"We'll tell him you were his godfather," I continued. "And that you wanted to raise him, but you couldn't, because you weren't a blood relative."

Sirius nodded. "Fine." He was staring out over Potter's yard, eyes fixed on the yellow speedboat. _The Dream_. "Fine."

"How did You-Know-Who get out?" It was Dora, her voice hoarse from tears. "How did he come through the veil without the Cloak?"

Dumbledore, who was holding the Cloak in question - it had been hanging in Potter's closet, tucked between a silk shirt of his and one the dresses he'd bought for Lily - shook his head. "There are other ways out. Deals, bargains, trades. I imagine Death was very interested in Voldemort's soul."

"What's special about his soul?" I asked, but Dora spoke over me.

"So you don't think he killed Death?"

"I do not think it is possible," Dumbledore said. "Not even for Voldemort."

Sirius rubbed at his eyes. "Can I say goodbye?" he asked, and we didn't know he was talking about Lily or Harry.

Dumbledore took his arm and escorted him into the house, where the bodies were laid out and where a sobbing Hagrid and a stiff Professor McGonagall were standing with the baby.

"So now what?" Dora asked me with a sniffle.

"What do you mean?"

"I love you," she said.

I opened my arms. She fell into me, and we rocked each other until sleep found us on the lawn of the late Mr. Potter.

* * *

The next day was a combination of grieving and pretending to be fine. The full moon was that night. I had nowhere to go. I felt unwelcome at Grimmauld Place after the way I'd snapped at Sirius, but there was no secluded attic in my own home for me to hide.

The only option I could think of was going back to my childhood home and locking myself in the old shed.

(I think I knew, even then, that I would not be coming back to Godric's Hollow.)

"Sirius has been arrested," Dora said that afternoon when she came over.

My heart sank. "So he _did _do it. He's the one who gave them up. His own wife."

She nodded. "It looks like it. He went on a rampage. Says in the paper he killed Pettigrew, and twelve muggles who happened to be standing nearby."

Pettigrew, who had loved his wife so much. Pettigrew, who had always been in the dark.

"Think we can still live in his house?" she asked with a grin.

Here it was. The hard part.

"Dora," I said, and she heard it all in my voice.

"I know." But she wouldn't look at me.

"I don't think we should see each other."

"Don't do this."

"Look at everything that's happened," I said.

"That's not because of us."

"Yes, it is. It started when you took me to Potter's party."

"It started years before that. It was bound to happen."

"In spite of all that, then." I took her by the shoulders. "I am not good for you."

Her eyes were swimming. "I told you before, I don't care about that."

I closed my eyes and pressed a kiss against her forehead. "Goodbye, Miss Tonks."

She swallowed hard. "I love you."

My heart was pounding, as if it already knew I'd made a mistake, as if it wanted me to take it back. "You'll get over that."

She shook her head. "I won't. Ever."

After she walked out the door, I sat down at my table and cried _hard _for the first time since I was a boy.

* * *

The new owners of my childhood home had changed the place around quite a bit. They'd added several floors, for one thing, piling them on top of each other like building blocks so that the whole stack leaned precariously. But they'd kept the shed, so I knocked on the door to see if they'd allow me to borrow it for the night.

A small child with strikingly orange hair answered the door. "Hullo?" he asked, squinting up at me.

"Is your father home?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I dunno."

"Your mother?"

He shrugged again. "Who're you?"

"My name is Mr. Lupin," I said. "I used to live here, once."

"It's our house now," the child said. "We live here."

"I know."

"Percy, who's at the - oh! What can I do for you?" It was a plump woman, with two children in her arms, one balanced against each hip. Her hair, like the child's, was bright red.

"My name is Remus Lupin," I told her. The small boy called Percy scrambled away into the house. "I used to own this place."

"Oh! Do come in. Arthur," the woman called over her shoulder. "Mr. Lupin is here."

"Who?" a male voice called back as I stepped over the threshold.

"Lupin! The old owner!"

"Oh!" A balding man came into view. He was walking slowly; two redheaded children were clinging to his legs, giggling madly as he dragged them over the floor. "Fred, George, get off, Daddy's got company."

"No!" cried one of the children, and they dissolved into more giggles.

"It's quite all right," I said with a smile. "I just wondered whether you'd allow me to - erm - I have an unusual request."

"MUM!" howled a boy from the top of the stairs. "Bill took my toy broomstick!"

"Bill, give Charlie back his broomstick!" the mother called up the stairs.

"I'm only borrowing it!" a faint voice called back.

"I don't want you to!" The one called Charlie was sobbing.

"What's your request?" asked Arthur. "We'll do everything we can to accomodate."

A loud _thud _from upstairs, and then: "MUM! Bill broke my toy broomstick!"

"Excuse me," the mother said with a sweet smile, and then she went charging up the stairs, bellowing, "William Weasley, what did I tell you?"

"I need to spend a night in your shed," I said. "I just - it's a complicated reason."

Arthur looked confused. "Wouldn't you rather spend the night in a bed?" he asked. "There's a mattress in the attic. Now, we've got a ghoul up there, but he's perfectly harmless."

I shook my head. "The shed. It has to be."

Arthur smiled apologetically. "Unfortunately, that shed's filled to the brim with things - I work with muggle artifacts, you see. No room for sleeping. Barely any room for walking, come to think of it. But if you'd rather the attic bed?"

"Thank you. But no." There was a forest behind the house. If I started now, I could lose myself entirely inside. Maybe I wouldn't come across any humans. "Keep your family indoors tonight," I said.

Arthur looked confused, but he played along. "I will."

"So nice to have seen you again."

"And you, Mr. Lupin." Arthur smiled and trudged to the door to see me out, two giggling sons still in tow. "If there's anything else we can do, don't hesitate to come calling."

"Thank you."

* * *

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

Their faces floated in my mind as I walked deeper into the forest. Lily. Sirius. Dora. Pettigrew. Marlene. Dumbledore. Potter.

Potter, who had found his happiness at last for one glorious night.

Potter, who had come back from the dead for his love.

Potter, who was gone, who was never coming back.

The moon rose, and the prickling of transformation began across my skin.

In my last moments before the monster overtook me, I found myself feeling oddly seasick, as if I were standing on board _The Dream _with Potter as we motored across the Godric's Hollow lake, trying to get to that sweet far place where everything was fine. Maybe it was locked somewhere in the past, or maybe it was shrouded in the mists of the future; or maybe it wasn't a place at all, maybe it was something else altogether, something we had all glimpsed before with our eyes closed, or felt when a kiss ghosted across our lips - something as beautiful and out of reach as Heaven itself.

* * *

_END_


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